


Eurydice; The Original Comeback Kid

by Vulcanodon



Series: Orpheus Had No Follow-Through [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternative Title: Richie becomes the New Mike and Immediately Fucks It Up, Canon- Typical Homophobia and slurs, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, Horror, Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Resurrect Your Gays, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-10-28 09:53:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20776619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vulcanodon/pseuds/Vulcanodon
Summary: Richie makes a deal with the devil and Derry pays the price. The Losers reunite to deal with the consequences."Behind him, almost imperceptible, he hears the footsteps. Richie’s heart jumps in his chest and he lets out a rush of air but before he can turn Pennywise is in his ear saying, REMEMBER RICHIE: DON’T LOOK BACK.“Okay, okay.” Richie says, every muscle in his body aching to turn around. "Old school, I can dig it.” "Russian translation now available, courtesy of the amazing YellowGrass: //ficbook.net/readfic/8913444





	1. Chapter 1

_The companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain._

  
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818

_Through hypnosis, I'm going to regress this boy back.....Back into the primitive past that lurks within him. I'm going to transform him! And unleash the savage instincts that lie within!_

  
-I Was A Teenage Werewolf, 1957

When it was all over Richie had walked away from the kissing bridge knife in hand, climbed behind the wheel of his shiny rental car and thought, _Fuck the power of friendship, fuck Derry, let’s put the pedal to the medal and get out of this shithole, no looking back and please god let the forgetting begin all over again._

He had been stinking, bone tired and covered in layers of grime that even the quarry (_greywater)_ hadn’t unlodged from under his fucking skin. A shower could wait though, wait till he reached Los Angeles and his expensive empty box of an apartment. Maybe he wouldn’t bother then either, just crawl under the bedsheets with a bottle and stay there until everything made sense again and didn’t hurt so badly.

His hands were at ten and two on the wheel, the engine was idling, and Richie was already seeing the rest of his life stretched in front of him on the highway, canned laughter and booze and the endless boring loneliness of it all. His foot hovered over the accelerator. _Go Speed-fucking-Racer._

* * *

  
A month later and Richie is still in Derry, lying on Mike’s shitty pull out couch, eating cold Chinese takeout and grimly contemplating the prospect of a shower. He’s hungover which is normal but awake before noon, which isn’t. He’s only been sleeping on this mattress for two weeks (having finally given up on not-sleeping in the Townhouse) but already Richie can tell the chiropractor will have to rebuild his spine from scratch. L.A has a lot of chiropractors, all of them overpriced. If there were any chiropractors in Derry they would probably be viewed at best with suspicion and at worst as a form of new-fangled voodoo.

  
He thinks briefly of rummaging for an advil but Richie knows the pain is self-inflicted and therefore he feels obliged to feel it to the full extent.

  
_Age and alcohol,_ he thinks,_ don’t mix these at home kids! Only to be undertaken by our professional glutton for punishment, Mr Richard Tozier!_

  
Involuntarily he sees little pill bottles spilling out of a fanny pack. He shoves another bite of congealing rice into his mouth before the thought can find purchase. It slides down his throat like a wet slug and he groans aloud, pushing the takeaway box away.

  
“You know if you’re hungry I’m making real food.” Mike, or the Mike shaped blur in his foreground vision, says with only a hint of mothering.

  
Richie’s blind with his glasses dropped somewhere in the pile of dirty clothes last night but he can hear Mike puttering around making breakfast; probably something nutritious and carefully balanced and definitely vegetarian.

  
“Thanks but the doctor told me I can’t eat anything without at least three types of preservatives in it.” Richie rasps out, grimacing at the sound of his own voice. “Also, I don’t know if I can handle another kale omelette. You nearly killed me the last time.”

  
“Don’t hate on kale, man. Haven’t you heard it’s a superfood?”

  
Richie takes a rebellious bite of cold sticky lo mein and thinks he hears a carefully repressed sigh of disapproval.

  
They’ve lived in this little attic together for only a little while, only since the others fucked off but already they’ve reached a state of what Richie can only imagine is domestic bless. Which is to say, Mike is long suffering and Richie disappears for most of the time and both of them have things they don’t say to each other.

  
Kale omelettes are a good example. Richie knows that Mike eats kale omelettes because he grew up in the slaughterhouse, putting metal bolts between the eyes of cute little lambs. Mike knows that Richie is sick most mornings not because of kale omelettes but because he’s wasted most evenings.

  
_ Hey folks, it’s messy but it’s marriage! Richie says to the imaginary audience. Take my wife! No please, take her!_

  
There are other things they don’t say underneath all of this, things like _Why the fuck are you still here?_ and _Why did you make me leave him down there?_

  
Richie would always come out the asshole if these conversations were ever had though- he’s the leech sponging off Mike’s regrettably big heart and besides Mike wasn’t alone in what happened down there. Richie had left too in the end.

  
He hadn’t gotten too far though.

  
Richie’s phone beeps and he fumbles for his glasses and squints at the too-bright screen. He scrolls past the latest missed calls from his manager and sees a notification from the group chat marked Losers. It still irritates Richie, that group chat, though he loves them all dearly. He just can’t help but feel it’s a little too jaunty, a cute little club they all get to be in. Initiation, the defeat of one eldritch abomination. _Careful, the hazing can be lethal!_

  
“Bev says hi and has sent us a picture of a turtle.” He grunts, trying to sound enthusiastic.

  
While Mike pulls out his phone and coos at whatever cute little reptile (amphibian?) Bev’s posted, Richie shrugs into one of his three shirts. He sniffs to check it’s the least nasty one. He’s been using Mike’s washing machine, but Richie had packed for a day or two, not like Eddie’s massive Sex In the City suitcases-

  
_Beep Beep Richie,_ he reminds himself and thinks very hard about how to pull on his pants so his legs go in the right holes.

  
“Ben says they had to stop the dog from eating them.” Mike says. “Florida, how about that, huh? I heard it’s beautiful. I’ve always wanted to see an alligator.”

  
Richie’s been to Florida and it’s terrible. He sweat through all his clothes in minutes and was nearly eaten alive by bugs but Mike sounds so wistful that Richie can’t bring himself to burst his bubble. Mike’s so sick of Derry he’d probably be wistful over fucking New Jersey but who’s Richie to trash a man’s dreams?

  
More beeps from his phone. Bill has been trying to get them to come to his premiere, but Beverly is keeping things on the low down till the divorce goes through.

  
The others had managed what Richie couldn’t and got the hell out of dodge quickly, trickling off one by one. Bill had been the first- summoned by a pissed-off Director and his even more pissed- off starlet wife. A few days later Beverly and Ben had ridden off into the sunset, hand in hand and promising to call. That had left Mike, who while seemingly desperate to get out, get anywhere, had to tie up his affairs first. He had a resignation letter to write and bags to pack, not to mention a conspiracy theorists wet dream of maps and books and boards covered with red wool to dispose of.

  
Easier to pack up and run as a big shot architect/fashion designer/screenwriter than on a town librarian’s salary, Mike had joked, without a hint of bitterness. Richie had thought of his own bank slip with a tinge of guilt. Stan had been well off too, according to what little information they could get from google searches and awkward conversations with his widow (and Eddie too, don’t forget, little Eddie with his big car and big house and big wife). Was it some kind of karmic joke that those of them that left Derry had ended up doing so well, some kind of cosmic paycheck for their childhood memories?

  
_ Ladies and Gentlemen, have you ever heard the one about the child-eating space clown?_

  
Every comedian worth their bar tab can get a good routine out of awkward adolescence and fuck if something trying to murder you wasn’t awkward. Maybe that was why he had ended up telling other people’s jokes.

  
So, Mike had stayed for a while and Richie, well Richie had just stayed. If the others had been surprised that Richie had stuck around, they had tried not to show it. Bill had clapped his shoulder in an uncomfortably masculine kind of way and Beverly, too perceptive always, had told him to call anytime. Ben was the worst one, sweet, hot as shit, Ben who had always had the puppy dog eyes but never paired with the muscles. He had looked at Richie like he didn’t understand, like Richie was blaming them somehow for leaving so quick.

  
Which hey, maybe he was but it wasn’t rational, so who cares?

  
Richie hauled himself up and staggered in the direction of the kitchen sink. With the largest glass of water, he could find safely acquired, he sat out of the sunlight coming in from the window, Mike beside him with his head in a map.

  
“What do you think of a road trip?” Mike said, cutting into his brooding. “I figure I could buy a car if I sell some of this stuff. I have enough saved for at least a couple of states. Would the Niagara Falls be too cheesy?”

  
“The Canada side is cooler.” Richie grunted. “Who exactly is gonna buy all your old lady furniture? Unless you have another stolen artifact you wanna pawn off.”

  
“I said I felt bad about that.” Mike said defensively and then his expression turned shifty. “I have some interested parties. What are you doing today?”

  
He asked this every morning and Richie so far had always had an answer for him; _Derry book club, gonna see a man about a horse, seniors burlesque._ Truthfully Richie was going to do the same thing he did every day which was fuck all.

  
“Derry High Glee kids need a new vocal coach so I thought I would try and whip ‘em into shape.” Richie said, shrugging. “Regionals are coming up, you know how it is.”

  
“Well, have fun.” Mike said nonchalantly, watching Richie shrug on his jacket. “Don’t stop believing.”

  
“Thanks honey!” Richie called out, plastering a fake smile on his face, fluttering his eyelashes, Shirley Temple style. “Don’t wait up!”

  
It’s only when he’s on the street and walking away that Richie wonders if Mike was inviting him along for the ride. In which case Richie had kind of blown him off. But that was for the best really, Mike was too bright eyed and bushy tailed to let a mess like Richie ruin it for him. Outside the weather was beautiful like it had been since they had arrived, real showstopper of a day and Richie stuck his hands in his pockets, scowling on principal. The truth was it was actually hard to do nothing, think nothing. It was alright in the evenings-he had alcohol for that. Not in some shitty hick bar or worse, back in Mike’s comfy little apartment but consumed from the hip flask, while on the move.

  
_ It’s not being an alcoholic if it’s in a hip flask._ Drunks carried around bottles and cans but Mr Bigshot Comedian, he drinks publicly in a classy way, sitting alone by the edge of the Barrens until the world takes on a soft, hazy edge.

  
But that’s night and in the sun, beautiful weather just lovely, Richie has to hide in a coffee shop like a bespectacled vampire, sucking down black coffee and ignoring emails. He plays a lot of solitaire on his phone. Sometimes he tries to write new material, but it all ends up very bleak.

  
_ Have you heard the one about closets? Have you heard the one about unrequited love and bleeding out alone in the dark? Beep, Beep Richie._

  
A lot of the time he just walks around, aimless but predictable, his feet carrying him back in an endless rotation of nostalgia. The arcade, the cinema, the Barrens. Sometimes it feels like his childhood’s become a grubby toy or puzzle, broken from too much use, turned over again and again in his hands. For so long the missing memories were like a phantom limb, but now they feel too vivid, inescapable.

  
Everyday Richie walks until his feet hurt thinking sometimes, _I could get a job here? I wonder if they would let me replace Mike?_ And then, _Get in the car idiot. Go book a gig, Get outta this cess pool._

  
Sometimes Richie wonders how long he’s gonna revolve in these circles, stuck between nothing and a life he hates. Will he still be here in fifty years, long after the money has run out, back broken from Mike’s pull out and staggering around like Eddie’s leper?

  
Today, still half thinking about the nightmare he hasn’t quite chased off yet (_You think they can guess your secret now, huh Richie? Cry-baby, the cat’s outta the bag!_) he looks up after a random turn and nearly throws up.

  
Unconsciously, horribly, he’s somehow standing in front of the Neibolt house. Or rather, the remains.

  
Richie only allows himself one ragged look at the grey rubble, forcing the pit back down in his head and stomach before turning on his heel. Never to his childhood house. Never to Neibolt. Those are the golden rules.

  
He makes it two steps before he hears Eddie call his name.

  
It’s not really that Richie freezes so much as the world becomes very cold and still around him, as if he’s been submerged all at once in freezing black treacle, although he can still hear the birds and see the sunshine.

  
“Eddie?” He whispers. He can’t stop himself. “Eds?”

  
“Richie. Please.” Eddie calls again and then Richie is staggering like he’s still drunk, towards the wreckage. Eddie’s voice is coming from the center, from under piles of fallen masonry but Richie doesn’t care, he’ll fucking rip up the nails with his hands if he needs to if only Eddie keeps talking to him.

  
“Richie, where are you? I can’t find the way out. “ Eddie is calling up through the shrapnel and Richie falls to his knees, his hands shaking as he pulls up board after board.

“Eddie, Eddie, Eddie” he can hear himself say, a litany, stuttering like Bill on the words as they pour out. “I knew it, I knew you were alive, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry I left you, I shouldn’t have listened.”  
He pulls back a door, hands bleeding badly now and there, miraculous, is a hand grasping from below, grey and dirty but alive-

  
Richie grabs onto it like a lifeline, sobbing, muttering apology after apology but it’s alright soon Eddie will be out, in the sunlight, in his arms again and _warm._

  
“I can’t breath Richie.” Eddie is saying from under the ground, but his hand is so real and Richie is grinning wildly and telling him _it’s alright, he can have his fucking inhaler if he wants, Richie will give him anything he wants if he just-_

  
“Hey mister.”

  
The hand is gone. Richie pants, alone on his knees in shattered wood and stone. Eddie’s gone. Again.

  
“Hey. Excuse me.”

  
He looks up, glasses half off his face, still shaking.

  
A kid on a bicycle is watching him with a dubious expression. He looks to be about eleven.

  
“You should watch out. That place isn’t safe.” The kid says and Richie stares wildly at him for a moment before throwing his head back and laughing hysterically at the open blue sky.

* * *

  
Mike finds him back at the attic, hands shaking too much to pry the cap off a shiny new bottle of whiskey. Richie’s half run all the way home but he’s still giggling a little because it’s just so fucking _funny_ isn’t it, because Eddie fucking died but it changed _nothing_, all the bad shit hasn’t gone away it was for nothing all of it and that’s the funniest god damn joke Richie’s ever heard.

  
“Rich?” Mike asks, almost painfully gently, approaching him with the calm slow movements usually reserved for wild animals. _I’m good practice for the alligators,_ Richie thinks wildly and that sets off another stream of giggles.

  
“Hiya Mikey!” Richie says, the whiskey slopping into the glass and splashing onto his hand, the rim of the bottle going tap tap tap from how hard his hands are shaking.

  
“Can I get you one? I know it’s a little early but it’s five o’clock somewhere right?”

“Richie what happened? What did you see?”

  
Mike looks frightened in a way that Richie hates, because he of all people deserves to never look like that again.

  
“He’s not dead.” Richie blurts out and the words have been trapped under his tongue for weeks but this time he believes them. “He’s still down there.”

  
“Richie…” Mike starts, looking heartbroken but Richie doesn’t want to hear it, can’t hear it over and over again.

  
“I saw him Mike. I saw him. Today. A fucking half hour ago.”

  
Mike holds his gaze for a long moment and whatever he sees there makes him take a deep breath like he’s about to jump into the fucking quarry all over again.

  
“Yeah.” Is all he says. “I’ll take a drink.”

  
It takes a significant chunk of the bottle before Richie is calm enough to tell Mike everything. The manic energy has faded and left in it’s place a kind of bone deep tiredness that pushes Richie down into Mike’s armchair, his head into his hands. Mike doesn’t interrupt him, just listens, staring into his drink and nodding occasionally. When Richie can’t speak anymore there is a long silence, where he swills the whiskey around his mouth and clenches and unclenches obsessively the hand that had held Eddie’s.

  
“So.” Mike says finally, just when Richie thinks he’s about to go insane again from the quiet. “Either you’re crazy. Or we didn’t kill IT completely.”

  
Richie thinks Mike’s missing the most important part, the bit where Eddie could still be down there, he could come home! But he just nods jerkily.

  
“I hope to fucking god it’s the first of those man. Believe me I do. “Richie says, lying only a little bit. “But it felt so real. Like when we were kids.”

  
“I don’t think you’re crazy.” Mike says, looking unhappy about it. “I think you’re drinking a lot. I think you need therapy. And we all know you’re a Trashmouth. But you aren’t crazy.”

  
Richie blinks. So two whiskey Mike is Honest Mike. He can’t find it in him to be offended though.

He laughs instead. “Guilty as charged I guess.”

Mike doesn’t smile back, staring around him at the boxes and boxes of notes, books, research.

  
“I thought it would be over.” He says in a small voice. “All this time. My whole life has been about that fucking clown. It felt so good Richie. To hold his shriveled little heart. It felt like revenge I guess.”

  
Richie thinks about Mike alone in this fucking attic for years and suddenly feels like he’s gonna cry. It wasn’t fair, not for Eddie or any of them but it especially wasn’t fair for Mike.

  
Mike, left alone in a town full of horrors, last bastion of defense against the nasties underneath, forgotten by his friends. Mike who had stayed and called them all back and had gotten nothing but bitching for his trouble. Richie should know, he had been the worst of it.

  
“Hey, hey Mikey listen, we don’t know that. This is probably just some last little bit of energy. Aftershocks. Hey, you’re the conspiracy theorist here, have you heard anything? No more kids right? No more posters?”

  
Apart from Henry Bowers, escaped inmate, and the police had stopped looking because who could care? But Richie knows where the body is, they had bundled it up and left it in the woods, the evidence of Richie’s little (_murder)_ accident.

  
_ Beep Beep Richie. Let’s focus on the fresh trauma for now, huh?_

  
“I have to be here.” Mike is saying, slugging back his drink in an alarming way. “I always knew that. Like last time. I don’t know what I was thinking. I belong here.”  
Richie feels like he’s rapidly losing control of this situation and pats him on the knee a little desperately.

  
“Listen, don’t say that. Niagara Falls yeah, and swimming with the uh, alligators in Florida remember? Don’t give up that easy, sport.” Richie says with his Kindly Father Figure Voice.

  
Mike looks pissed and Richie regrets it almost instantly.

  
“Give up?” Mike snaps and Richie realises he’s never really seen Mike angry before, not even at Bowers holding him down over that bloodied meat as a kid. Even at the end of everything it had been righteous judgment shining in his eyes as they took down Pennywise, not this raw hurt.

  
_ Ding, Ding! Richie Tozier’s achieved the impossible folks! Which treasured friend will he take on next?_

“I never gave up Richie.” Mike says quietly, as if controlling himself only barely. “You were the ones who left me here. You all moved on, got your fancy jobs and adult lives but I was always here, same old Mike. In Derry. With IT. You got to leave. You got to forget it all.”

  
They stare at each other and then Richie hears himself say, in a small voice.

  
“You got to remember.”

  
Remember the summer that made him who he was today, remember the bikes and the sunshine and eating icecream side by side with (_Eddie, the electric shock of their knees brushing in a dark cinema, heart beating out of his chest at every little touch, reading the same comic books over and over sprawled in bed together, his stupid shorts and high socks and fanny pack and wrinkled up nose when he pretended not to laugh at Richie’s jokes)_ and the only really good, pure thing Richie had ever done with his messed up life, the time he slew a monster in the dark with the only real friends he ever had.

  
Richie hides his face by pouring another drink for them both. Mike takes it and it’s a peace treaty.

  
“I’m sorry Richie. I chose to stay.” Mike says, rubbing a hand over his face. “It’s only that sometimes I wish…I don’t know. There could have been another way.”

  
“You’re too much of a nice person. It’s not healthy.” Richie says and then bares his teeth in what he hopes looks like a smile. “You should try being more like me. Feels so good being bad- Rihanna said that you know. Or maybe Gandhi, I forget.”

  
This time Mike does laugh.

  
They keep drinking after that but the mood lifts. Mike gives Richie a very detailed and drunken outline of his road trip plan, which has turned somehow into a worldwide tour (I_’ve gotta do that tall thing in France, Paris, y’know what I mean? The whassit, the Eiffel Tower? No, baguettes Richie, it’s all about the bread)_. Richie feels giddy, but he can’t pretend it’s just from the alcohol. It’s awful and stupid of him but it feels like this is what he’s been waiting for, the feel of Eddie’s hand still warm in his. He can take Pennywise a hundred times over just for that. He has hope, fucked up and twisted as it is. There’s a chance now, that maybe he doesn’t just have to accept things as they are, cold and (_dead)_ and finished.

  
_This isn’t the fucking epilogue baby, no way!_

  
It’s in this mood, as Richie is about to fall into his bed with his clothes still on and giggling like a dumbass at the mystery of his shoelaces when he looks up and catches Mike staring out the window.  
“Mike?” Richie asks, half afraid he’s gonna turn around and say, hey I think Pennywise is on the lawn, but when he turns, he sees Mike’s face and realizes he’s crying.

  
“I’m sorry Rich.” Mike says, standing framed in the window. “I’m sorry about Eddie. It’s not fair that IT would use him like that, use what he was-“

  
Richie realizes drunkenly and with a sudden drop in his stomach that Mike is going to say “to you” and then they would be over the fucking cliff so he acts on panic and drops the bottle he’s still holding onto the floor. It smashes loudly and then the next few minutes are spent with both of them hunched over playing the world’s worst jigsaw puzzle.

  
Richie apologizes but doesn’t mean it because under the circumstances it was a genius method of avoiding real emotion, even for him. Mike takes the hint or maybe just gets distracted because he doesn’t say anything else until they’re both about to stagger off to bed.

“Aftershocks.” He says, looking back at Richie with an almost pleading expression. “Right?”

  
“Like ripples on a pond.” Richie agrees, and then, maybe still thinking of Niebolt House says, “I’ll stay this time. At least for a bit, just to see if everything gets quiet.”

  
He’s a little shocked by himself even as the words come out but he’s even more shocked to realize he means them.

“Richie…” Mike says, looking upset but underneath it, horribly relieved. “You don’t have to-“

  
“Eh- I’m here anyway. Besides you need someone to take care of this place for you right?” Richie says, slurring only a little bit. “Go to stupid humid Florida, go eat some bread. Your Watch Has Ended.”

  
Mike blinks at him, swaying a little.

  
“Game of Thrones?” Richie prompts. “Geez what have you been doing all these years- “

  
He’s cut off by Mike falling forward to hug him and woah, Ben had muscles, but they had all been sleeping on Mike. Richie freezes up but then hugs him back, feeling like a big bag of bones.

  
“Thank you, Richie. Love you.” Mike says, muffled into his collar and Richie says it back, pats him on the back and tries not to cry for like the tenth fucking time today.

  
Lying in bed that night, the hangover already looming, Richie slips his hand under the pillow and somehow isn’t surprised to feel the smooth plastic of an inhaler. He falls asleep clutching it like a stuffed toy and dreams of water dripping in the dark.

* * *

  
In the week it takes till Mike is waving goodbye out of his car window, Richie sees Eddie three more times.

  
The first time is the worst, not just in terms of sheer pain but mostly because Richie had been having one of the first real good night of sleep since arriving in Derry. No nightmares, no fucking Pennywise dancing through the fucking air, and best of all, he hadn’t even needed alcohol to do it.

  
Ever since their cozy little whisky soaked confrontation, Mike had been getting a lot fucking bossier about the drinking, probably spurred on by the epic jelly-brained nausea they had both suffered through the next morning. He hadn’t really needed to though- independently Richie had also privately tucked away the hipflask, not so much for his health, which was a lost fucking cause, but out of a strange sense that he needed somehow to be ready. For what he only had the fuzziest notion. It was too delicate to fully explore yet.

  
So waking up somewhere on the wrong side of 3 AM, hunched over from the agony ripping through his chest, strikes Richie as pretty unfair.

  
The pain is overwhelming and total, so severe that at first all Richie can do is gasp for air and hunch over, cold sweat already soaking through his t shirt. His first thought is heart attack, until he lifts his hand up to his mouth and comes away with blood on his fingertips.

  
Then he’s stumbling to the bathroom as silently as he can, somehow knowing even through the nauseating haze of pain, that he couldn’t wake Mike, that this was just for him.

  
On his knees in front of the toilet bowl he retches up nothing and feels the phantom edges of the wound in his chest, thinking _this is what he felt, this is what his last moments were, why wasn’t Eddie fucking screaming at the end?_

  
When he staggers to his feet and looks in the mirror Eddie’s looking back at him, all grown up, with his eyebrows scrunched together.

“Do you have any betadine Richie?” Mirror-Eddie asks him. “You need a disinfectant -do you know the statistics for bacterial infections on open wounds? Ever heard of gangrene, idiot? Tetanus?”

  
Richie can only gape at him, feeling slick blood under his hands coming faster and faster. Mirror-Eddie tilts his head to the side and reaches his hand up to the glass. He has the same look of vaguely neurotic concern that he used to as a kid but there’s something fond about it.

  
“Hey Trashmouth.” He says, warmly as Richie tips toward the mirror. “Watch out.”

  
Then Henry Bowers is sticking a fucking knife into his cheek and Richie yelps in pain, spinning to see Bowers leering at him, poised to lunge again.

  
He can feel obscene jut of the knife handle, the blade scraping on his teeth but all he can do is stare at Bowers, who’s laughing now, reedy and insane.

  
“I wanted you to be the first to know.” Bowers wheezes at him. “The doc says you cured me- the lobotomy was a success!”

  
He shows Richie the back of his head, the shattered bone and grey chunks of brain and Richie feels the bile rising up in his mouth.

  
“Like what you see faggot?” Bowers cackles and then, laughter cut off, “Why’d you kill me Richie?”

  
Richie opens his mouth to scream and then the pain is gone, Bowers is gone and he’s alone on the bathroom floor, covered in sweat and panting. His cheek is unbroken under his fingertips.  
He checks the mirror when he splashes his face in cold water but it’s just him, looking old.

  
Richie sits on the closed toilet lid for a long time thinking and then goes back to bed, where he lies with his eyes open till the sun comes up. He doesn’t tell Mike in the morning.

  
He continues to not tell Mike as he helps him pack, as they look for a car shitty enough to be cheap but not too shitty to get across state lines. He doesn’t tell him over lunch or dinner or breakfast the next morning. It’s not that Richie doesn’t mean to, it’s just that Mike seems so fucking happy to get out, so comforted by their ‘aftershock’ theory and by the continued absence of MISSING posters on walls.

  
So, when it happens again and Richie walks out of the Aladdin Theater shaking like a fucking lily and throws up in the garbage can in the alley across the street, he doesn’t even consider calling.

  
He had nearly choked on his popcorn when it happened, sprawled across two seats at the back in the dark and nearly empty cinema, watching some godawful rom-com. It had been too hot to do his normal town-crazy pacing routine, so he had taken refuge in a midday screening. When he was a kid he had once watched a double bill horror here- Kiddie Wolfman and some Frankenstein sequel or something but it had been with Ben and Beverly, so it had been hard to pay attention over all the pining. It had seemed so hilarious and vaguely embarrassing to Richie at the time, watching Ben’s hand twitching like a fish where it brushed Beverly’s seat. Then he had come back a couple of summer’s later with Eddie, when both of them had lost their appetite for horror, They had watched some Stallone flick instead and suddenly the joke hadn’t been quite so funny. Not when Eddie was rolling his eyes and being generally annoying in the seat next to him, his bare leg brushing Richie’s every fucking minute, to the point where he had to pretend to drop his popcorn when the lights came up at the end just to hide his puberty fuelled erection.

  
Now, years later and not much less awkward in his own body, Richie watched Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn agonise over their boring marriage. There wasn’t enough ‘com’ to balance out the ‘rom’ for Richie and he hadn’t really been that invested until Colin Farrell had popped up as a second act romantic rival and taken off his shirt.

  
It wasn’t really that Richie was in the closet because he did date guys, which was to say he had a lot of one-night stands and embarrassing Grindr hook-ups. If he had a circle of friends, Richie would probably tell them about it. Probably. It just wasn’t a part of his public persona and if Richie took pains to keep it that way then _hey, that’s just showbiz baby._

  
Richie didn’t write his own material for a lot of reasons, but he had never really felt that bad about it until coming back here. It wasn’t as if, given the chance, he would stand up in front of the crowd and start making jokes about how much he liked dick. His set was standard girlfriend jokes and dirty humor, pretty fucking boring but Richie had always taken pride (_haha_) in his delivery of even the most routine ‘yo mamma’ patter. If he wrote it himself, he would probably write the same fucking stuff, so who cared if it was other people’s hack jokes instead of his own.

  
Eddie had said, I knew it!, when he had found out and what the fuck did that mean? Richie thinks of Eddie watching his stuff, without even knowing him and the thought is embarrassing for some reason but also exciting. He had meant to ask, but they didn’t had the time. They really hadn’t had that much time at all, for anything, in the end.

  
All too soon Colin Farrel is booted from the movie, turning out to be a weirdo and a grouch (which really only makes him more of a catch) and Richie is slumped lower in his seat, half asleep. Jennifer is staring into Vince Vaughn’s eyes and telling him that _she could never be tempted, that they made a commitment to each other and the bond of marriage lasts forever and ever and ever…_

  
And then it’s like a stuck loop (_ever and ever and ever_) and she’s looking away from Vince Vaughn and turning to the screen and telling Richie directly (_and ever and ever and_)

  
“Forever Richie.” Eddie whispers in his ear in the suddenly silent cinema. Richie holds his breath in his lungs and feels Eddie’s, hot on his neck. “I’m waiting.”

  
“I want to talk Pennywise.” Richie says loud as he can manage, trying to stay calm. “I’m ready to listen. I’ve got the fucking message you hear me?”

  
Then the girl two rows down turns around and shushes him and the score is rising as Jennifer and Vince lock lips.

* * *

The third time, okay the third time was intentional on Richie’s part.

  
He thinks about all the places that Pennywise could fuck with him, the clubhouse with its stupid broken hammock, the kissing bridge but then remembers that above everything else, Pennywise had always been a fucking _drama queen_.

  
The Derry Canal Days Festival is over, but they haven’t quite packed everything up and, like the fucking masochist he is, Richie heads straight for the biggest creepiest clown statue he can see.  
Funfairs are the worst in the daytime, but because he has to break, in it’s the middle of the night when he gets there.

  
_So, fuck me, basically,_ Richie thinks as he hovers in front of the funhouse, skin prickling. Bill had told them all about his little visit here, but somehow it doesn’t feel right and when Richie sees the flash of a white cast on a skinny arm disappearing into the Hall of Mirrors he follows.

  
Inside he sees himself, over and over, a hundred lanky limbs and receding hairlines and ugly glasses stretching on into forever, but he keeps moving deeper in, watching for the reflections that move just a little out of synch. He sees himself thinner, shorter, grotesque and stretched out of proportion and finally he’s standing in front of a mirror looking at a bespectacled, pale little kid with dark hair and a nose he’ll grow into.

  
His glasses are falling off his nose and when Richie reaches up to adjust them his hands are smoother and hairless. The tiny scars from cooking burns and falling on gravel on late nights out are gone and he looks down to see unlaced trainers and knobbly knees. Richie had forgotten how it felt to be this height, what it felt to have to look up at things. His hair feels thicker and he puts his fingers in it, remembering what his mom’s hand had felt like brushing it away from his forehead.

  
“Hey Richie.” Eddie says softly behind him.

  
Richie isn’t scared when he turns round, because it all feels so familiar.

  
“Hiya Eds. What’s a nice kid like you doing in a place like this?” His voice sounds high pitched in his own ears.

  
Eddie is young too, jittery big brown eyes and one hand rubbing anxiously over the bright red V on his cast.

  
“Admiring your reflection? Don’t break the glass.” He snarks and he was always such a little shit; Richie can’t believe he forgot that.

  
“What’s not to admire?” Richie says, doing a muscleman pose. “You’re looking at a prime specimen here, Eddie my man.”

  
“More like something in a specimen jar.”

  
“Your mom doesn’t have any complaints.” Richie shoots back and they kind of grin at each other before Eddie looks away, the manic energy going so quickly to something quiet and a little scared.

  
Same old Eddie.

  
“This place is pretty creepy, huh.” Eddie says, screwing up his face. “I don’t think anyone’s ever cleaned this glass, it’s fucking gross.”

  
“So, let’s get out of here. C’mon I’ll let you buy me an ice cream.” Richie says eagerly, sticking his hand out but Eddie just looks at it sadly.

  
“It’s not that easy, Rich. You know that.”

  
Richie looks at him, and past him to the mirror, seeing the two of them over and over, so fucking young.

  
_ It’s all just tricks kid_, he remembered his dad saying once. _Smoke and mirrors. Optical illusions._

  
But Richie had never seen that well with his own eyes anyway.

  
When Eddie tells him what to do, where to go, he listens. When he steps out of the Hall of Mirrors, old and aching again he almost feels calm. For the first time in so long, maybe forever, he knows exactly what he has to do.

* * *

  
So a day later when Mike waves goodbye, Richie waves back with a genuine smile on his face. When the car is out of sight and Richie feels Mike is safely on his way to happily ever after, he goes back to the apartment and starts to get ready.

  
He doesn’t need much- a heavy flashlight and Mike’s thickest hiking shoes (only a little too small). He thinks about climbing equipment, a first aid kit, water, rescue blankets but this wasn’t a fucking camping trip it was a rescue mission. Besides, a little part of Richie felt like that would be jinxing it, preparing too much for a miracle. On impulse he takes his pocketknife, though the blade is pretty much useless. It feels comforting though, tucked in his hand.

  
Though he would never admit it to anyone, Richie had always secretly suspected that there was some kind of psychic bond between the Losers, some kind of frequency they tapped into that no one else could. So when Ben calls him when he’s halfway to the Barrens, as if he knows what Richie is about to do, he isn’t really that surprised.

  
“Fuck. Why did you bring the phone, dumbass?” Richie mutters to himself and then makes his voice perky and light when he answers.

  
“Heya Haystack, what’s kicking?”

  
“Hi Richie. Not much- I just wanted to check in.”

  
Ben’s voice comes out tinny through the phone, and Richie wonders which ocean he and Bev are sailing over, with their cute dog and model looks and happily fucking ever after. It’s a bitter thought and undeserved and it makes him softer on the phone than he normally would be.

“It’s all present and correct here, don’t you worry. I’m watching uh, Jeopardy. Time for the daily double.”

  
_What is a bad fucking liar?_ He thinks. The Alex Trebek in his head is applauding.

  
“Cool cool.” Ben says, distracted and then there’s an awkward pause before he blurts out, “So Mike’s gone huh?”

  
“Yup. They grow up so fast.”

  
“He seemed really excited when I called. Said he had a book about the best roadside attractions in America.”

  
Richie snorts. “That’s a librarian for you- always doing his fucking research. He should have fun though- I think he’s gonna be alright.”

“He deserves it.” Ben says and then pauses again. “You got any plans? For you know, what’s next?”

  
_Here we go._ Richie thinks. _We’re getting to the real stuff now._

  
“Oh, you know me. “He says, keeping it breezy. “Snoozing, boozing, cruising. Thought I’d stick around for a little bit. Feel a little bit nostalgic- maybe it’s the old age. Derry really isn’t so bad y’know. Less traffic than L.A.”

  
This is a terrible lie, but Richie doesn’t really expect Ben to buy it. Let them think what they want about him.

  
“Richie if this is about Bowers or E-“

  
Richie cuts him off before he can say the name.

  
“It’s about a lot of stuff Ben, but y’know I’ll bounce back. I just need a little more time. Don’t worry about me.”

  
It’s a surprisingly upfront answer for Richie who never faced an emotion in his life he didn’t treat as a joke and Richie almost finds himself wishing it were true.

  
“Okay, Rich.” Ben says, and he was always the fucking nicest. “Love you man.”

  
“You too buddy.” Richie says, wincing at the _buddy_.

  
“Hey, Beverly wants to talk to you.”

  
“Go ahead.” Richie says, thinking fuck. “If you’re not worried I’ll steal her away.”

  
“Not too worried.” Ben says dryly and Richie should be older than this, older than looking for the double meanings in everything people say. If he weren’t such a coward, he could joke about it.

  
_How come? Because I’m a massive homo or just plain ugly?_

  
“Hey there cowboy. How are you holding up?”

  
“Hiya Bev. Did Mike put you and Benny on babysitting duty?”

  
“Something like that.” She says, no bullshit and man, Richie’s not thirteen anymore but he’s still blown away by just how _cool_ Beverly Marsh is.

  
“Well quit while you’re ahead honey because I’m right as fucking rain. Nothing but blue skies do I see.” Richie says in his best Sinatra- Michael Bublé drawl.

  
“Sounds nice.” Beverly says and then, because she’s more fucking psychic than the rest of them put together, tells him “Don’t do anything stupid Richie. It’s over now. You get to move on.”

  
“Stupid? Have you met me? I’m a regular Einstein.”

  
He’s reached the Barrens now, and it’s dark away from the streetlamps and weirdly cold for summer but it’ll be colder down below. Richie shivers and tucks the phone closer to his ear.

  
“Sure.” Beverly agrees easily. “You know…I looked in the deadlights too. You probably don’t want to talk about it, but if you need to-“

  
“I know.” Richie says. “I know Bev but it’s too much.”

  
“I know Rich. Believe me. I lied to you about it when it happened to me, lied to Stan. I couldn’t even tell you all the truth, when-“

  
She breaks off and there’s a shuffling noise. Richie wonders if Ben is there, if he’s holding her hand.

  
What must it be like, to go through life like that? As one part of a whole?

  
“It’s alright Bev.” He says. “One day I’ll tell you. I promise. Just not tonight.”

  
She tells him she loves him before he hangs up and Richie thinks that he’s said_ I love you_ more times in the last month than he’s probably said in his entire life put together. At least after his parents bought the proverbial farm.

  
But he’s in front of the open drain entrance now and there’s no more time for thinking. It’s still as creepy as it was that day in summer with Stan and Eddie hanging back while Richie tried to look as cool as Big Bill. The day that school ended, and everything had begun. He had been such a dumbass with Eddie back then, trying to rile him up and show off to him one minute, and backing down constantly with the need to reassure, to not go too far and push him away.

  
_Not every plant is poison ivy Stan._

  
Eddie and Stan had always been more cautious than the rest of them, not as stupidly brave as Bill, Ben, Mike and Beverly. Or just stupid like Richie. And look where it had got them.

  
Richie pushes past the ghosts and into the drain.

  
It’s strange going this way, sloshing through water, one hand trailing along the curved brick walls. His flashlight beam bounces off wet brick and he keeps expecting it to illuminate some grinning skeleton or disembodied hand. It’ll be a long way till he’s under the Niebolt House, but that entrance is blocked now; Richie’s coming in the back door here and it feels unnatural, like he’s breaking a pattern.

  
He’s alone too. He had never been in here alone before.

  
He’s so frightened his chest feels like it’s full of barbed wire but there’s something right about this too, this journey into the belly of the beast. He’s gone this way twice now, and it had been somehow worse as an adult, when you thought all of the childhood fear was long behind you, but this time felt inevitable. In a way Richie had been thinking about walking back down this path ever since they had dragged him out of it.

  
He could have been walking for minutes or hours when he sees the first balloon floating in the water. He’s made a lot of turns, but this is the first time he’s come to a fork in the road. The balloon bobs just inside the tunnel on the left. Pennywise is showing him the way. Richie hesitates for a moment before following it. There’s another one just a little way down and like the last, it glows faintly.

There’s something a little fucked up about having the welcome wagon rolled out like this, as if Richie’s somehow switched sides in this war they’ve all been fighting since they were fucking fourteen.

  
For a while the tunnel gets very tight and Richie’s almost squeezing his way through, thinking about Patrick Hotstetter going missing right after coming in here. Those MISSING posters scared him more than almost anything as a kid, the idea of becoming just another silent face on a poster with no one, not Big Bill or his parents or Eddie or any of the others thinking anything of him beyond, _oh it’s a little quieter now huh?_

  
Then suddenly, just as Richie thinks he’s about to flip out from the claustrophobia, the passageway opens out into a large cavernous storm drain, almost as wide as the Derry canal. Red balloons float around him, thick as the poppy field in Wizard of Oz, and he’s pushing past them to move.

  
It’s not so quiet anymore. He can hear music from up ahead, echoing through the dark.

  
“Oh fucking great.” Richie grinds out, gritting his teeth against the cold. “On top of everything else I’ve gotta listen to doo wop.”

  
_ You left me last September_, The Teen Queens croon and yes, maybe this betrays just how pathetic Richie is that he recognizes it.

  
His mom had an old record, _Love Songs of The 50s!_ and Richie had worn that groove down, until she had come home early one day and he had scratched it useless from how quickly he had ripped the record out. It would have been worse than being caught masturbating, being caught listening to that song and it makes him angry to hear it now, to think of Pennywise knowing all his dirty precious little secrets. Once he had played it as a joke in front of the others, cranking the volume up loud but the joke had been on him, his heart nearly beating out of his chest when Eddie had scowled and rolled his eyes.

  
_ All I do is cry myself to sleep, Eddie since you've been gone…_

  
“Alright, fun’s over you piece of shit.” Richie yells as the music gets closer, louder. “You got me here, but I’m not scared of you. I held your fucking heart in my hand douchebag.”

  
**_oh richie don't hurt my feelings_**, and the voice feels like long nails digging around in Richie’s entrails, **_don't tell me you aren't afraid of clowns anymore?_**

  
The voice comes from the end of the tunnel, where the balloons are pouring out like blood from a wound.

  
Richie had told the others that long ago, panicking under the attention he usually craved but the truth was he had always had worse things to fear.

  
“You make a pretty good monster; I can admit but you were always a shitty clown.” He says, splashing faster now, wanting it to be over. “The truth is, you sad 80s has-been piece of shit, is you just aren’t that funny. Balloons? The fucking circus? We’ve moved on dickbag. Watch a fucking Vine. You need some new material, bitch.”

  
He’s not sure where this bravado is coming from but maybe he’s just got nothing left to lose. He’s reached the empty gaping end of the tunnel now and he catches himself just before he goes over the edge. It’s a sheer drop, coming out high in the ceiling of the huge cavern they had fought IT the last time.

  
He scans for Eddie’s small crumpled shape, braced for the moldering corpse but then Pennywise erupts with laughter, so loud the walls shake.

** _you'd know all about that, wouldn't you richie? think you can do a better job than me?_ **

  
Then a spotlight is in his eyes, blinding, and then the cavern has become a packed audience and they’re all screaming his name.

  
“And now it’s time for the man you’ve all been waiting for!” Henry Bowers screams through the microphone, “Give it up for Trashmouth the Clown ladies and gents! Look at him dance!”

  
It’s deafening, the sensory overload enough to drop him to his knees but Richie’s faced worst crowds. At least the fucking song isn’t playing anymore.

  
“Stop. Enough.” He rasps. “I get it, no more trash talk.”

  
** _oh but richie, i thought you wanted to play?_ **

  
The crowd goes silent and still all at once and Richie sees for the first time that they’re all dead, corpses with maggots twisting in empty eye sockets. He sees a small yellow rain jacket and looks away, hand tight around the knife in his pocket.

  
“I don’t want to play with you anymore.” Richie rasps out. He feels fourteen and thirty four and a hundred years old all at once.

  
** _okay richie, let's deal instead. one life for another_ **

  
Richie swallows but he was expecting this. “Alright. I don’t suppose there’s any point in asking you to make it quick.”

  
Pennywise laughs and the sound is obscene.

** _oh richie! do you really think i want your pathetic little existence? you are insignificant. you are nothing. you are a dropped stitch in the fabric of the universe _ **

_My haters are my motivators,_ Richie thinks hysterically but he’s panicking.

  
“What else then? I won’t kill the others for you. I won’t.” But even as he says it he’s not sure if it’s true, if he wouldn’t lure Bill or Ben down here into the dark for his own selfish needs.

** _i don't need blood richie. i need belief. you killed me now i'm hungry richie. i want to live again. i want to feed._ **

  
Richie blinks and feels his mouth open and close.

  
“That’s it?” He says, high pitched and reedy. “You just need me to believe in you again? And then you’ll let him go?”

** _that's right. just a little fear._ **

  
Richie almost laughs. A life for a life. It was nothing. Richie had spent his whole life afraid, he could spare a little now. For Eddie.

  
_ And what about the little kiddies of Derry? All of Mike’s hard work? Stan’s suicide. What will the others say when you tell them you’ve undone all those years of work, of trauma and loss. For what? Someone who’s already dead._

  
“I’ll make that deal.” He hears himself say. “But you have to keep your end up. No tricks.”

** _no tricks richie_ **

Pennywise is gleeful, and Richie can almost see the venom running down his face like dribble, like the big fat spider he is.

** _turn around, walk away. he'll follow_ **

  
Richie doesn’t say, how can I trust you? It would be a useless question; he can’t. Pennywise could be dangling nothing over his head, Richie could be selling them all out for nothing but Eddie’s cold corpse but if there’s a chance, even the slightest glimmer of hope then Richie has to take him at his word. What else can he do?

  
He turns away from the dead audience, his back prickling and he’s expecting the spike in his back any minute, braced for the pain but the seconds tick by and it doesn’t come. He takes a step, two then three.

  
Behind him, almost imperceptible, he hears the footsteps. Richie’s heart jumps in his chest and he lets out a rush of air but before he can turn Pennywise is in his ear saying, _**remember richie: don't look back.**_

  
“Okay, okay.” Richie says, every muscle in his body aching to turn around. “Old school, I can dig it.”

  
But even as he begins to walk, the fear presses down on him, crushing in from the tunnel walls. He’s straining his ears to hear the faint splashes behind him and thank god he’s blind and not deaf because every grey cell in his brain is going into overdrive trying to analyse the sounds. Were those the noises of something dragging itself, or walking upright, was it too loud or too quiet or maybe not even there at all? Was the thing behind him Eddie-sized or monstrous, the teen werewolf sharpening its claws and drooling in anticipation?

  
Maybe he’ll stumble out of the drain and turn around to see Pennywise, that motherfucker, grinning at him and puffing on a burnt up inhaler.

  
All these things were somehow less scary to think about than the possibility that it was Eddie, still in his fucking polo shirt with his scrunched-up eyebrows and little white bandage on his cheek.

  
The balloons are gone now, and the water feels heavier and colder, dragging on Richie’s wet clothes as he tries to navigate his way through the maze.

  
“I should have left some breadcrumbs or a red thread or something. If only you still had your stupid fanny pack.” He finally blurts out, panicky when the footsteps momentarily get quiet. “You probably would have brought a fucking GPS tracker or something if Bill hadn’t made us rush down here with his Big Damn Hero speech.”

  
There’s nothing from behind him, even Pennywise has been left behind but Richie keeps going anyway, because he never could shut up. His voice is echoing loudly off the walls.

  
“I have to say it’s pretty nice not to hear you bitching about how unsanitary this is. Of all the places we could have made the stand-off against our boogeyman and it had to be in the fucking sewer. You must have hated that more than anyone Eds.”

  
_ Don’t call me Eds,_ Richie thinks desperately, _say it Eddie please, call me a motherfucker, you could never shut up so why start now?_

  
Maybe-Eddie is silent behind him but someone else answers from a side tunnel, wheedling and soft.

  
“Oh honey.” Beverly’s voice calls out, sugar sweet. “He’s gone Richie, it’s over sweetheart. This is just a bad dream- when you look back you’ll see for yourself. It’s time to wake up now”.

  
Richie doesn’t pause but goes a little faster. The tunnel stretches on in front of him, endless and dripping. The next voice is Bills and he seems angrier, full of that same old righteous spark.

  
“He’s m..m…married Richie. Di- Did you forget about that? That changes a man. Makes him grow up. Wh-why haven’t you grown up yet? Even if- if you get him out wh…wh..what then, huh Rich? He’ll go back to her. Sp-Spare yourself the h…h..heartache.”

  
“I don’t care.” Richie snaps, despite himself. “I wouldn’t care if he forgot about me all over again. It would be enough just-“

  
He stops because he’s not arguing with Bill, he’s arguing with some last trick of IT. Bill’s in Hollywood right now probably having sex in a hot tub with his hot actress wife and drinking champagne.

  
_You said no tricks Pennywise you lying bitch,_ he wants to say but all his bravado is gone now with so much on the line. Richie thinks that he’s never done anything as important as this, been so fixed on a goal as leading Eddie out of this nasty grave.

  
_I’ll lie down in the fucking greywater once we’re out,_ he thinks, _Facedown. I’ll kiss the fucking ground if we make it. Please, please God, anybody, let us make it._

  
The voices keep wheedling him, but they aren’t so bad now, Richie just needs to stick his fingers in his ears. Blah Blah Blah, not listening, I can’t hear you. He endures Mike telling him how disappointed he is, how Richie’s betrayed him and actually manages a laugh when Ben tells him he’s an idiot, risking it all on a childhood crush who he doesn’t even know anymore.

“You’re one to talk Hanscom. I saw that yearbook page.” Richie tells him but Stan’s voice shuts him up pretty fast.

  
It’s the worst of them all, the cruelest trick, and Richie has been ready for it but it still makes him almost drop the flashlight when it comes.

  
“I thought you were my friend Richie.” Stan says, forever young and still so serious. “I met you first, before Bill or Eddie, don’t you remember? You came to my bar mitzvah. Why didn’t you come for me now? Why not me Richie?”

  
“I’m sorry Stan.” Richie says, although he had meant to face him with silence. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry but you made that choice. Eddie didn’t get a chance. He didn’t want to go. I couldn’t leave him down here, I couldn’t leave him in the dark.”

  
He brushes the tears out of his face with a filthy hand and thinks maybe the tunnel will go on forever, that there’s no way out and he’ll be wandering around here under Derry with Eddie behind him, arguing with his childhood friends until he dies. Maybe it’ll keep going after that even, and he and Eddie will still be doing this dance around as ghosts, tied together forever and Richie never looking back, not ever-

  
Then there’s a gust of cold air from ahead and it smells like lavender and fucking roses to Richie, it smells like new car and clean sheets. He almost sobs in relief as he trips towards it. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel, it’s still night even though he feels as if he’s been down here for days. He can see the bars though, catching on the torchlight and beyond them dark trees and, best of all, the moon, shining like a new silver dollar, the prettiest thing Richie’s ever seen.

  
The urge to look back hits him all at once, the desperate need to see for himself, to see Eddie, alive and whole and real, but Richie’s no idiot, he knows how this story goes so he keeps his eyes front and center, begging _please, please, please-_

  
He’s shaking as he climbs out of the pipe into the warm night air, but he doesn’t stop there, splashing through the river where they had first met Ben until he stops, submerged up to above his knees thinking is this far enough, is it enough. He can’t bring himself to turn around, not when he got this far and so he just stands there, listening and waiting.

  
He can hear his own breathing, ragged and raw and beyond it, the trickle of water and the faint sounds of night birds.

  
“Eddie.” He’s says softly, feeling like he’s going to shatter into a million pieces. “Eddie, Eds. If this isn’t you then I don’t know what I’ll do, I don’t know how-“

  
There’s a splash behind him. Then another and then arms are reaching up around his waist and a face is being pressed into his back and he’s not warm, still dripping in drain water but he isn’t cold either.

  
“Richie.” Eddie says, muffled into Richie’s hoodie and Richie reaches down to hold Eddie’s hands where they cross over his heart and maybe he’s holding too tight, but Eddie doesn’t let go.

  
“I’m gonna be really creeped out if this is actually Pennywise hugging me right now.” Richie tries to joke, choked up. There’s a soft huff of laughter and then Eddie is pulling him round before Richie can protest and Richie looks, lets himself look more in a way he hasn’t since he first started feeling bad for it at eleven years old.

* * *

  
He nearly kills them both all over again on the way home, because he can’t stop now he’s started, can’t stop himself from glancing over every five seconds just to check that Eddie’s still there in the passenger seat. Eddie’s filthy, covered in fifty shades of dirt and blood but he’s not emaciated in the way you would expect from nearly a month of lying in a sewer. He looks for all the world just like he did when Richie was dragged away from him except for the fact he’s moving and breathing. Richie has to clench his hands around the wheel to stop himself from reaching over to feel his heartbeat.  
He looks shell-shocked though, staring out the window as if he’s never seen the world before and every so often, he lifts his hand to his cheek as if checking the bandage. He hasn’t said much apart from Richie’s name, which is unnerving.

  
Richie’s doing enough talking for both of them twice over, talking so much that even he isn’t listening anymore.

“Mike left me the keys, so we can crash there for a bit.” He’s babbling at the moment, wincing as he takes a corner a little too tightly. “Oh yeah, I forgot, you’ve never seen it have you? It’s fucking weird Eds let me tell you, like the Batcave had a baby with the library in Buffy. I guess Mike is kind of like Giles when you think about it, only more American and less white. You’ll probably hate it though, now I think about it, the dust makes even my allergies act up.”

  
He keeps it up all through the drive and even after they reach the library, ushering Eddie up the stairs with anxious little touches to his back, torn between greedy need to make sure he’s real and fear that he’ll disappear with too much handling. He’s still talking as he turns on the shower in the bathroom.

  
“I know you’re gonna be snooty about the three-in-one shit but it’s all I’ve got since Mike took the good stuff. I can root around in your bag if you like, I still have all your stuff. I know you probably have your own hypo allergenic, low sulfate or whatever- “

  
He’s fussing around the room, folding through towels and rearranging the soap but when he looks up Eddie is just standing there, looking seconds away from collapsing. He’s trying to take off his jacket, but his hands are fumbling. Richie is cold but Eddie must be _freezing_.

  
Richie hovers for a long second, scared even now, after everything, but Eddie looks like he’s gonna cry, struggling with the zip.

  
“I’m not gonna look okay dude.” He says and then, hands shaking, he strips Eddie out of his clothes as efficiently and as gently as possible. It’s the worst fucking way to realize a life-long fantasy and there’s nothing sexual about it with all the dirt and cold, but it almost makes him cry all the same. Eddie grabs onto his wrist when Richie pushes him towards the shower and then they’re both standing under the spray, Richie still fully clothed with his glasses on.

  
They must look ridiculous, two middle aged men crammed into one small shower and clinging onto each other for dear life but all Richie can think is that this must have been what the quarry felt like for the others, the sheer exhilaration of being alive, of being washed clean of everything bad.

  
Eddie wakes up a bit under the heat, managing to wash his own hair which thank fuck, because that would probably break Richie completely. He’s still not saying anything, but he lets Richie take the bandage off his cheek, wincing only slightly, his dark hair plastered against his forehead.

  
“Hey, it’s not as bad as I thought.” Richie says when he sees the scar tissue underneath, dark pink and healed over already.

  
“You won’t be winning any beauty pageants just yet though.” He jokes and it makes his heart constrict because he’s such a fucking liar. Eddie and his scar, shivering under shitty fluorescent lighting like a drowned rat, is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

  
He’s been avoiding looking at Eddie’s chest till now, but he can’t make any jokes when he sees the mass of ripped up tissue, the thick dark clump of scars. He checks Eddie’s back and it’s the same, messy but healed, whole.

  
Eddie sits on the toilet cover wrapped in about ten towels, still so fucking silent, while Richie has the quickest shower of his life, afraid to let him out of his sight for even a moment. He’s falling asleep by the time Richie gets him into Mike’s bed, wearing a pair of Richie’s pyjama pants and his ‘_Got Beef_?’ T shirt. Richie thinks about dragging a chair over to watch him sleep, like some kind of Edward Cullen weirdo, but the exhaustion is hitting him like a wave, so he just lies down on the covers next to him.

  
Mike’s aged little alarm clock is showing 4AM in glowing red but Richie keeps his eyes open, staring over at Eddie’s profile in the moonlight.

  
“You used to say I never shut up as a kid.” He whispers.

  
Eddie turns his head and his eyes are almost black in the half-light.

  
Richie can’t seem to keep the words from coming out.

  
“Beep-Beep Richie. I think Stan started that. But you were always louder than me, I used to find our lunch table in school by listening for your annoying fucking voice. I always thought it was weird someone so tiny had such big lungs. That should probably have tipped us off about the fake asthma. I want to say it’s nice to see you finally shutting up but you know I’m kind of missing it now. Maybe you can’t talk because of all the fucked-up stuff that happened or maybe you’re like, zombie Eddie now and you’re gonna wait till I fall asleep before eating my brains or something- “

  
There’s a strange wheezing, bubbling noise from Eddie that briefly alarms Richie before he suddenly realizes that he’s laughing. Richie freezes for a moment but then he’s smiling, despite everything, because all he’s ever really wanted to do was make Eddie laugh.

  
“Pretty slim pickings. I think as a zombie I could do better.” Eddie says, voice wrecked and it’s a shitty joke but then they’re both crying with laughter in the dark bedroom and Richie, for the first time since the dead lights, takes a full breath and lets it out.


	2. Chapter 2

It takes a while for Eddie to wake up but longer still to convince to convince himself he’s alive. He had slept so deeply, been so fully submerged in unconsciousness that the waking world didn’t feel real compared to his dreams.

Eddie’s never been a great sleeper. Back home in New York he had a special orthopedic mattress, which had promised “optimal spinal alignment and comprehensive lower back support”. Myra had said it felt like lying on a kitchen table. That had been one of the few arguments Eddie had won in the end, keeping that mattress, even though she had cried and told him he would be a hunchback by forty. But hell, it wasn’t like she would be sleeping on it; they had long since moved to separate bedrooms at that point.

Even with that expensive, admittedly overengineered bed Eddie had been lucky to sleep more than six hours a night and never deeply. When he came back to Derry the nightmares had made more sense but that wasn’t the only thing keeping him awake. 

_You think too much Eddie-Bear. It’s not good for your brain._

Now Eddie wonders if every bed he ever sleeps on, every sofa or sleeping bag (_or hammock_, a treacherous little voice whispers) will feel as good as this after the cold rock of the cavern floor. He can feel sunlight on his face and someone snoring loudly, but he doesn’t want to open his eyes just yet. He feels, for once, really fucking good; _healthy_, and he wants to ride the feeling for as far is it will take him.

Eddie shifts a little closer to the warmth next to him and lets the arm that’s under the covers move just a little, until it’s barely brushing against Richie’s. His skin tingles. It doesn’t feel weird that Richie is in bed with him, though realizing that does in itself feel weird.

Then Richie rolls onto his back and the warmth is gone but the snoring only gets louder and Eddie gives up and opens his eyes.

Sitting up in bed he takes stock.

He’s breathing so that’s a start. Every muscle is aching but there are no sharp pains when he moves his limbs. He wiggles his fingers and toes and they all feel attached.

So: alive? Check.

Safe? Hesitant check.

Wearing over-sized pajama pants and the _ugliest_ fucking t-shirt he’s ever seen? Unfortunately, check.

He looks around the room and it’s a firetrap, with its wooden sloped roofs and books and cardboard boxes, but there’s no clowns, so he feels pretty happy with it.

_Assessing the risk, Eddie Spaghetti? _Richie asks snidely in his head.

_Richie._ Eddie lets himself look down at where he’s still sleeping, giraffe legs hunched up awkwardly and half off the bed, drooling into a pillow. His glasses are still on and Eddie’s fingers twitch to take them off and fold them on the bedside table.

Instead, he gets out of bed as quietly as he can and walks to the window. It looks like a nice day. The sun shines through the trees, making all the leaves light up and it surprises him to realize that Derry was always pretty like this, blood soaked and evil though it was.

_This is the first day of the rest of your life! _Myra had a little fridge magnet that had said that. It had always vaguely depressed Eddie before but now, now maybe he gets it.

He spends a while there, just looking and then he goes to find some coffee. The kitchenette is tiny and everything is ancient compared to his slick gleaming appliances back in New York but he finds a kettle and a French press and hiding at the back of a cupboard, an unopened vacuum sealed pack of coffee grounds. It takes him a little longer than pressing a button on his _Synergi Interga Bean to Cup V.30_ but Eddie finds himself kind of enjoying the process and he’s humming a little when there’s a crash from the direction of the bed.

A second later Richie half-skids around the corner of a bookshelf with wild eyes and hair poking up in wild tufts. He’s actually panting, mouth open, and Eddie raises his eyebrows.

“Did you fall out?” he asks, genuinely concerned.

“Uh. Ah. No.” Richie says eloquently. “You’re still here.”

Eddie doesn’t really know what to say to that beyond something glib like _disappointed?_ Or _Duh! _so there’s an awkward moment where they just look at each other instead.

“I’m making coffee.” He blurts out finally and Richie’s eyes flicker to the French press and he just nods slowly.

“Do you want some?” Eddie says, trying again.

“Uh. Yeah.” Richie says roughly. “Thank you.”

It’s maybe the nicest, most straightforward exchange they’ve ever had. It makes Eddie incredibly nervous. 

Richie plunks himself down at the kitchen table and proceeds to stare at Eddie like a hawk while he measures out three spoonfuls of grounds and pours in the water. It’s not until they’re both sitting at the table, Richie with a mug in front of him watching Eddie practically inhale his, that he breaks the silence.

“I didn’t even know we had this. Tastes weird. It’s not bitter or anything.”

Eddie snorts. “Yeah, no shit, I found your fucking Folgers. I’m lucky Mike has taste.”

Richie perks up. “So, you remember this is Mike’s place! I knew you were ignoring me on purpose last night, you dick.”

Eddie looks at him blankly. “Last night? I’ve just been here before dummy. I mean not here but below, the library. When you and uh, Bowers..”

He trails off at Richie’s expression, feeling guilty. How long ago had that been? Was it yesterday? There are so many gaps in his head, icebergs in the water he keeps bumping up against.

As if reading his mind, Richie narrows his eyes.

“What exactly do you remember? About last night?”

“The last thing I remember is you in the deadlights.” Eddie says bluntly, getting the worst over with first. “Then nothing for a long time- dreams, I guess. Images. I know time’s passed but I don’t know how much. I feel like I was lying down there for a long time, lying in the cold. And then I was in the Barrens. With you.”

Even as he says the words, he’s realizing that it doesn’t fit together right, that the events don’t match up somehow. Across the table Richie is barely breathing, hanging on his every word. Eddie looks down, into his mug. No matter how much he had craved it as a kid, the full force of Richie’s attention had always been too much for Eddie’s cowardly little heart.

“You remember me carrying you all the way back here bridal style? My bulging muscles?”

“I remember you wouldn’t stop talking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Eddie snarks back, and the tension breaks. He lets himself smile a little and Richie grins back. Eddie drops his eyes, holding his hand over the mug to feel the steam.

“It’s kind of fuzzy. I remember being in the uh, the shower.”

He’s horrified by the way his face suddenly heats up but when he peeks a glance at Richie’s face, he’s looking similarly absorbed by the bottom of his coffee mug.

“And then you were insulting me for some reason. And passed out before I could return the favor properly. So thanks for that.”

Richie laughs and his voice is still a little heavy from sleep in a way that makes Eddie’s knee twitch under the table.

“Yeah you’re missing a bit, Eduardo I’m not gonna lie.”

“Yeah thanks asshole. I got that much. Where are the others? How did you get out of the deadlights? Did Bill have to kiss you too?”

Richie blanches. “Uh, actually no, you did.”

“I kissed you?” Eddie asks, strangled.

“No!” Richie yelps and then clears his throat. “I mean uh, no, you saved me this time. Got ol’ Pennywise straight through the kisser. And then, well, he got you back. Pretty good. You, uh. Well you kind of died man.”

“Oh.” Eddie thinks about this for a minute. It’s funny but he’s kind of alright with it as a death. He had proved Richie right in the end. He’s been brave. He’d saved him. That was a fair trade really, to go out doing something like that.

And obviously, the fact he’s sitting here in pajamas drinking coffee, indicates it didn’t take that well anyway.

Richie is watching him again, his long fingers tracing patterns on the coffee table.

“Did I look cool at least?” Eddie asks. “With my heroic sacrifice?”

Richie’s laugh sounds more like a sob. “Yeah. You looked cool. The cooliest, Eddie baby.”

“And you got him? You got IT?”

“I tore his fucking arm off. We got him.” Richie says but there’s something about the way he says it that makes Eddie file away his facial expression for later examination. “But the cavern was collapsing. They wouldn’t let me, I mean we couldn’t, not with the rocks falling.”

“You left my body there.” Eddie says, matter of factly. It makes sense, there was no way they could have dragged him up the ladder.

Richie looks stricken though, almost angry.

“We_ shouldn’t_ have though; I should have stayed. I shouldn’t have left you down there.”

“I was dead, Richie.”

“You might not have been. Not yet. We should have at least tried.”

Eddie swallows, watching the flush on Richie’s neck. “You came back though right? I mean I’m here now.”

Richie nods a little too emphatically. “Yeah. Even death wouldn’t have you Eds. I knew you were too stubborn.”

Eddie suspects this was more about _Richie_ being stubborn, but he nods anyway.

“Not to sound ungrateful about that or anything but er, why is that? I mean don’t get me wrong I’m enjoying it, but I should be dead, right?” Eddie’s fingers twitch over his chest. He can feel the edges of the scar tissue, but he doesn’t want to look, not just yet.

“Eh, this is Derry.” Richie says, waving his hand and leaning back in his chair. “Maine’s capital of weird shit. I think there must have been some magic sticking around or something. If you believe something, then so it shall be or whatever. Tinkerbell. All of that stuff.”

This answer is equal parts very wise and very dumb but Eddie’s only just coming to grips with being alive, so he doesn’t question it too hard, just makes a dubious expression and drains his cup. It’s gritty at the bottom and his attention is suddenly caught by the grains. There’s something in there, shifting, a little too thick, a shape resolving out of the sludge-

  
“-Eds? Eddie? Yoo, this is ground control, come in please.” Richie is saying and Eddie’s blinks and looks away.

“What?”

“You’re zoning out man. I always thought you’d be a morning person; do you need breakfast or something? Is your blood pressure dropping? Don’t tell me you have fake diabetes now too.”

Eddie suddenly all at once feels _ravenous_, like he’s only just remembered he has a stomach and he lets out a shaky breath, locking eyes with Richie who looks alarmed by his intensity.

Eddie leans over the table, dropping his voice, feeling the most serious he has since he woke up.

“Richie?” He whispers and Richie’s breath hitches. “_Can you make pancakes_?”

It turns out Richie cannot. He does however make weird circles of doughy blueberry batter that taste like bicarbonate of soda but right now they're the best thing Eddie’s ever eaten and he goes through three plates, shoveling them into his mouth like a machine. It must be some symptom of resurrection because even that’s not enough and Richie has to break out Mike’s packet of reserve Fakon rashers which Eddie washes down with about four jugs of orange juice. Richie doesn’t say much, just looks increasingly more horrified and pushes more food across the table when Eddie makes grabby hands.

  
“Jesus, aren’t you worried your stomach will burst or something?” He says finally when Eddie starts on his fourth plate of pancakes. “You’re only little.”

“Fuck you.” Eddie says, muffled by a mouthful of delicious buttery batter. “I’m average height. _And _I just died.”

Richie wrinkles his nose. “Say it don’t spray it, Eds. Your wife lets you eat like that?”

“Don’t call me Eds.” Eddie says but the effect is ruined by the bacon he’s shoving in his mouth. “And no. I’m on a macrobiotic diet. And I don’t eat dairy. Or shellfish.”

“Sounds gross. And boring.”

Eddie shrugs. He’s not wrong but he doesn’t want to talk about Myra.

“You never said where the others are.” He says, changing the subject.

“Uh, they had to get back to stuff. Bill’s in L.A working on his movie. Said he still hasn’t got an ending. Mike’s doing his life-affirming indie film road trip. And Ben and Beverly are on a boat somewhere. I haven’t really been keeping up.”

Eddie actually stops eating in surprise. “Like, together on a boat? Don’t tell me I was dead when they finally hooked up?”

“Oh yeah. Big time. I saw it all happen. Lots of tongue action.” Richie says, making a creeper expression.

“Weird.” Eddie tells him and takes a thoughtful bite. “How does Bill feel about that?”

“Who cares? He had his chance. Ben’s been in love with her since like, the dawn of time.” Richie says, strangely defensive. “And Bill’s got a wife to get back to. He’s no cheater, he’s too straight-laced for that.”

“Beverly is married too.” Eddie said slowly, suddenly feeling as if there’s a whole other conversation going on here. It annoys him that Richie is acting like Beverly and Bill were this big one sided pining thing when anyone could have seen the way she felt about him.

“It’s not the same.” Richie huffs but he cheers up as they’re doing the dishes, not even complaining when Eddie makes him re-do all the ones that aren’t up to his standards.

Maybe Eddie should do something with his first day of new life, like run around in a park or go to church or something but they end up on the couch in the end, watching the sci-fi channel. It feels good though, with Eddie on one end and Richie on the other, although Richie’s taking up all the space with his legs and refusal to sit like a human being. Eddie’s somehow still hungry so he’s eating a bag of microwave popcorn. Well, mostly eating it, because a significant chunk ends up in Richie’s hair because he won’t stop talking over the dialogue.

“Oh man, I remember this!” Richie says as the credits come up on yet another black and white fifties horror flick. “This kid’s a real cool guy, big hit with the ladies. But he has a big secret he’s not telling them you see-“

“He’s addicted to hair pomade?”

“No, shhh.” Richie says, rolling his eyes. “And _pomade_? Just say gel. No, this kid is being experimented on by a mad scientist. At night he goes berserk and rips people to shreds as a wolf.”

Richie looks excited and for the first time his attention is fixed on something other than Eddie.

“Oh, so this is just teen wolf without the car surfing?” Eddie says, kicking his legs against Richie’s to win back a little space. “Lame.”

“No, it’s cool. At any moment he could go lose control and give in to all the evil urges. And uh, eat people. He has a lot of angst about it.” Richie says, actually looking like this dumb budget flick is making him a little sad. “I saw this once with Beverly and Ben.”

Eddie scowls. He remembers. He hadn't been able to go- his mom had dragged him along to visit his aunts and he had spent the whole time being told how cute he was and having his cheeks pinched while Richie had been having the time of his life watching people get torn apart.

Richie had called him cute too, once.

_But that was just a joke,_ Eddie reminds himself, not for the first time.

He’s actually having a pretty good time, watching this jock flipping out and get hairy until, in the middle of a badly choreographed fight scene, he suddenly starts looking at the bloody chest of some mauled victim, the big dark hole where blood is pouring out. Then Eddie blinks and sees that it isn’t blood, coming out it’s _spiders, a carpet of them, rippling and squirming and what’s worse is they aren’t pouring out they’re going inside, they’re climbing inside of him-_

He leaves abruptly to the bathroom, muttering something about needing a shower. He turns the water temperature up just a little too high and scrubs at his skin until it’s blistering and red, until he can’t feel tiny legs skittering over his body.

He used to take a lot of showers like this when he was younger, at first because his mom told him to but later out of habit. In the flat he shared with Myra it had been the only real refuge he had, because the bathroom was the only room with a lock on the door. She didn’t like it when he used it, so he had used to pull the bolt across very quietly so as not to upset her.

The soap is some awful three in one concoction, but it smells good, like sea salt and ginseng and Richie’s ugly T-shirt.

When his skin feels raw and scrubbed clean enough, he stands for a long time in a towel in front of the mirror looking at his scars. The one on his face is okay though it worries him that it’s so close to his (_not_ _cancerous_) mole. His chest is shocking though, partly because he doesn’t remember getting it but also because it’s so, well, _healed_. Eddie isn’t a doctor (and whatever Beverly said that would have been a terrible idea, he wouldn’t have made it through medical school without self-diagnosing himself with rabies or something). He’s not a doctor but Eddie knows his body, knows exactly what meds he has to take to get to sleep and what a twinge in his stomach means before he’s even eaten the meal that will give him food poisoning.

He knows how long it would take for a wound like that for heal, for scars to get to that stage.

Richie knocks on the door while he’s still standing there looking. When Eddie opens the door in his towel, he’s standing there with Eddie’s suitcases, looking at the ceiling.

“Uh, I thought you might want to wear something in your size.” He starts, speaking a little too quickly even for him. “I brought these with me from the Townhouse even though I nearly broke my back getting them up the stairs so y’know, _you’re welcome.”_

“Richie. How long was I dead?” Eddie asks and his voice sounds quiet but he’s trying so hard to keep it together.

“You want to put on a polo shirt or something before we talk about this?”

“Richie.”

“If you’ve got nothing but pills in these bags I’d be happy to lend you one of mine-“

“_How long Richie_?”

Richie shuts up and finally looks at him and Eddie almost doesn’t want to hear the answer from the look on his face.

“A month.” Richie says. “It’s been about a month. I think.”

“Huh. Okay.” Eddie gets out and then takes the suitcases and carefully _not_ slamming it, closes the bathroom door.

Richie’s right; he has too many fucking polo shirts and he has to dig down through a shocking amount of them before he finds his sole hoodie. It’s dark red and fleece lined, and it hadn’t matched the rest of his wardrobe, the careful grays and blues that Myra had mostly picked out for him, but he needs as many fucking layers on as he can right now. He balances them out with sensible chinos and shoes laced up extra tight and he’s running a comb through his hair when Richie starts talking to him through the door.

  
“Hey, are you freaking out in there? If you are then you have to tell me because I really need to piss but I can use the kitchen sink-”

“That’s disgusting.” Eddie says when he opens the door. Richie is leaning into the door but straightens up almost comically fast, looking surprised.

“Oh, you look nice. I mean normal. I thought you were gonna be a mess.”

“Thanks, Trashmouth.” Eddie says, rolling his eyes. He’s thinking about the empty fridge. They need more orange juice if this appetite is gonna keep up. And blueberries.

“You know it would be okay if you _were_ freaked out right?” Richie says and Eddie can’t help but notice he still isn’t going to pee.

“I’m okay. Do we have any conditioner?”

“Mike took it- I told you.” Richie says, frowning. “Hey really, I mean it. You seem weirdly chill about everything. It’s okay to be upset. I mean. You usually freak out about everything.”

“Again, _thanks_.” Eddie says. “But I’m fine.”

* * *

Later on, when Richie’s loading junk food into their shopping trolley and Eddie’s replacing it with granola, he stops and says, “It’s just weird. That I’m all healed up.”

“Magic dude, I told you. No logic to it.” Richie says, wiggling his fingers. He tosses in a jumbo pack of popcorn and Eddie considers and lets that stay. The Derry grocery shopping store is just as depressing as ever, all fluorescent lighting and long empty aisles.

“But why do I even have them? If you just believed me back into existence?” Eddie presses. “You couldn’t just imagine me without the big hole in my chest? Or taller?”

This last he mutters under his breath but he’s pretty sure Richie hears him from the little snort he makes.

“What can I say, I have a photographic memory. I’m like Tom Cruise in _Rainman_.”

Richie’s taken over the trolley now, headed for the booze section and Eddie trails behind him.

“You mean Dustin Hoffman. But doesn’t it seem weird to you? And what happened to me when I was dead? Was my corpse just lying there, decaying? Was I in my corpse or in like the afterlife or-?”

“Eddie _please_.” Richie hisses. “Could you stop saying corpse? There are children in here. And I’m not a fucking theologian okay, I don’t know, it’s just magic. let’s leave it at that.”

There is indeed a child here, a boy watching them suspiciously from behind a stack of toilet paper, wearing a Fortnite shirt and unfortunate braces. Eddie gives him a wave, then feels weird about it and hurries to catch up with Richie.

“I thought you said it was okay to be freaked out.” He says when he reaches him, feeling pissed and grabbing onto the trolley to stop it. “And I’m not the one who freaks out kids, Mr _You-Want- A-Picture?”_

“I meant like it’s okay to I don’t know cry or whatever, not talk about _decomposing_ like it’s a fun thought experiment.” Richie hits back, matching Eddie’s anger. “You didn’t see your body after IT got you, I did. It wasn’t very pretty, _Eddie-Spaghetti._”

He pushes back at Eddie’s hold on the trolley and for a minute they’re grappling with it in the middle of the fucking Derry Mini-Mart, glaring at each other like they’re fourteen again.

Richie is the first one to break and laugh and then Eddie is laughing too, because it’s such a stupid fight to have, about who gets to be more traumatized by Eddie’s death when he’s standing there, perfectly alive.

* * *

“I know we just bought all this, but I can’t be bothered to cook. Or you know, turn the microwave on.” Richie bitches later as they haul bags up the stairs to the attic. “Want to get takeout tonight?”

“Let’s go out.” Eddie suggests on impulse. “As long as it’s not the Chinese place.”

“_A-Fucking-Men_ to that.” Richie agrees with feeling.

It makes Eddie kind of excited, to be going out to eat just the two of them even if it is in fucking Derry and he realizes they’ve never done that before, go to a restaurant without the others, like actual _adults_.

It’s not till they get to the restaurant and he starts worrying about what he’s wearing that it occurs to him it might be weird. When they were little this place was a shitty kind of Italian restaurant but now it looks fairly classy, candlelight shining through the windows. A large, curling script above the door reads; “_La Tarantella_”.

“Didn’t this place used to be called _Mario’s_?” Richie grouses when they’re standing outside looking up at it, so maybe he’s feeling the strangeness too.

“Whatever. I’m starving.” Eddie says, stomping in, his feeling of dislocation only increasing when Richie holds the door open for him.

It’s admittedly pretty nice inside, all dark leather and tasteful music and get shown to a table well in the back. The server is nice but maybe a little too attentive and when she lights the candles between them Eddie has to fake a forceful effort to control his expression.

Richie looks equally shifty, burying his head in the wine list as the server rattles through the specials.

“Those all sound great.” Eddie says, nodding politely and not hearing a word. “How big are your portion sizes?”.

He’s bouncing with nerves until she walks away with their orders but when it’s just the two of them, he suddenly can’t think of anything to say. It’s dark and the music is nice, and Richie looks unfairly good in candlelight, even though he’s all rumpled and his shirt is terrible, and he’s got his elbows on the table.

Eddie has watched what he eats and what he sleeps and how much he works out his whole life and he’s ended up okay, in pretty good shape for his age, but basically just a short middle-aged man but somehow Richie does whatever he wants, smokes and drinks and eats like shit and he still looks like _that_. It's unfair, for multiple reasons.

Ben obviously changed the most and Beverly and the others had always been good-looking, but Richie was the one who Eddie hadn’t been able to stop looking at when they had first all reunited. He still had the glasses and the hair but it wasn’t just that he was taller now but that he was sharper somehow, stubbled and for once Eddie had been able to see his eyes behind those stupid lenses. It had been unnerving that first evening how _good_ he looked, on top of everything else, and Eddie knows it had made him too loud, too jumpy, sneaking looks at Richie’s hands and suggesting stupid shit like arm wrestling.

Now it’s just the two of them, without the buffer of the others and there’s some new tension there, something just under the surface. Not the awkwardness of childhood friends, now strangers, even though it should be, it shouldn’t feel like they know each other as well as they do.

“It’s uh, kind of a fire hazard.” Eddie says pointing the candle, for something to break the silence. “I think these napkins are cloth.”

Richie snorts. “Well I’ll try extra hard not to set myself on fire, thank you for the concern.”

“You wear like one hundred percent polyester; you should be concerned.”

“Hey, this shirt is cotton!” Richie says, “Maybe. I think. What’s wrong with polyester anyway? Is it flammable?”

“Actually no.” Eddie tells him matter-of-factly. “It’s actually less flammable than cotton. But if it gets too hot it can melt directly onto your skin. The burn scars fuse with the plastic.”

Richie looks horrified. “That’s really weird that you know that. You realize that, right?”

Eddie shrugs. “I told you I was a risk analyst.”

“So what, you get paid to be neurotic?”

“Something like that.” Eddie admits and then the server is bringing over their wine. Richie makes a big show of smelling it, swishing it around his mouth until Eddie kicks him under table to make him stop.

  
“Like you know the difference.” Eddie mutters, leaning in as the server hurries away.

Richie grins at him, pouring them both _very_ generous glasses.

“For all you know I could be a professional wine taster.” He says and takes a big gulp. “Mmm, oaky with a hint of strawberry, and is that, antifreeze?”

“The word is _sommelier_.” Eddie says rolling his eyes as he takes a sip. It’s nice wine and it goes to his head almost immediately, warming his cheeks.

Maybe it’s the wine but everything feels easy after that and Eddie starts to feel like he’s floating and not in a dead-lights kind of way. It’s strange how they can just slip into this so naturally, this back-and-forth, even after all these years. Richie’s feet are bumping into his under the table and Eddie feels too good to make himself pull away.

“So, have you told the others about the me-not being dead thing?” he says when he’s digging into his crème brulee (_and sugar is so fucking good,_ he’s remembering, even though Myra had told him that it wasn’t worth the cancer risk).

Richie had been smiling at him before he said, looking loose-limbed and sleepy but now he stiffens up, straightening his back. Eddie’s leg feels cold in the place where Richie’s had been touching it and he regrets saying anything.

“No. Not yet.” Richie says, playing with his glasses. “I thought that I would uh, wait a bit.”

“What in case it doesn’t stick?” Eddie tries to joke and then winces when the corners of Richie’s mouth turn down.

“Have you told your wife? She must be worried about you.”

Richie doesn’t sound angry but he’s not looking at him.

Eddie swallows. “Ah. Not yet.”

Myra is probably more worried about getting a lawyer.

* * *

Eddie had called her to say it was over right after he had stabbed Bowers through the shower curtain. He had been half delirious with pain and he had to keep stopping to spit out blood, even though Ben had patched him up the best he could. He had felt unhinged, giddy with adrenaline but somehow he had stayed calm on the phone, even when she cried and told him that her nervous system couldn’t take it.

_I don’t love you and you don’t love me,_ he had told her. _We both know it. I’m not coming back._

_You’ve said that before,_ she had argued, hiccupping down the phone. _You always come back Eddie, I don’t understand why you’re doing this to me again, why are you being so cruel? I do everything for you, I take care of you Eddie. Just come home, please. You’re not thinking straight. Have you been taking your medicine?_

Richie was covered in his blood and Bower’s blood and normally that would have scared him, the chance of contamination, but all he could think about was the others telling him that Richie had driven away, that he might not come back. That he had left Eddie’s life a second time and that Eddie hadn’t had the chance, hadn’t been _brave _enough-

_I’m sorry Myra. You can have the apartment, _he had said and then he could sense her switching tactics even down the phone, the waterworks turned off and a sly, wheedling tone come into her voice.

_Oh Eddie, have you been going to those bars again? You know I’ll forgive you if-_

He had hung up on her then and sat there on Ben’s hotel bed, breathing hard, staring straight ahead.

* * *

  
“You do you man.” Richie says now, shrugging. “I don’t know your marriage. Maybe you guys don’t need to check in on each other about silly little stuff like who's still breathing.”

“How about your girlfriend?” Eddie shoots back. “She okay with you fucking around in Derry for a month?”

“Girlfriend? Whose girlfriend?” Richie asks and it’s not a bit, he looks genuinely confused.

“Yours idiot.” Eddie says, face flushing. “You know I watched some of your stuff.”

“Oh.” Richie says and his mouth opens and then closes again. “Oh. I don’t uh, have one. I don’t write my own material. I told you guys that.”

Eddie’s heart is so dumb and weak because this doesn’t really mean anything but he feels suddenly so stupidly _happy_.

“You made up a girlfriend? That’s pretty sad.” He says, looking at Richie from under his eyelashes and he can’t help it, the smile is twitching at the corners of his mouth.

“Yeah.” Richie says and he laughs but there’s something a little off about it. “It kind of is, isn’t it?”

There’s a pause but it’s good one somehow. The wine is making Eddie tingly and he blames it for the way he holds Richie’s gaze a little too long, the moment stretched out between them and he’s opening his mouth around the word _divorce _when their server drops her tray and starts screaming.

They’re both up and on their feet in a second, and then Eddie looks past the server who’s on her knees in broken plates sobbing to the window. He’s moving as if in a dream, even as Richie grabs his arm and tries to stop him, pushing past the horrified guests until he’s standing by the big glass windows.

It looks like nothing at all on first glance, just a collection of odd shapes on the street outside, a ball rolling slowly on the tarmac. Then Eddie sees the scattered shoes and the trailing dark hair and he lets out a low whimper of horror, his hands coming up to clamp over his mouth.

The body, if you could call it that, was in parts, scattered across the road outside, illuminated by the streetlight. The head was still rolling and beyond it, Eddie could see a figure, laughing and clapping his hands, his mouth always too wide, the teeth too sharp and ringed with dripping red-

Eddie jumped when he feels the hand on his arm but it’s just Richie saying, _fuck, fuck what is this, Eddie what happened?_

Before Eddie can point out the clown, an SUV blares past, the driver braking just a little too slowly when he sees the body and slamming full speed into the streetlamp.

They both jump back then, away from the glass and stare wildly at each other, Eddie’s horror matched on Richie’s face.

“I saw him. IT’s_ still alive. _” is all Eddie can get out before the adrenaline takes over and he’s running out the door.

Richie is calling his name behind him, but Eddie is already on the street, past the wreck of the car still blaring its alarm, round the other side, to the grassy verge where Pennywise was standing.

There’s nothing there, of course there isn’t, but then he looks down at the gutter where the blood is already starting to drain away. There’s a human arm lying next to the storm drain.

Eddie can’t help it, even as he’s repulsed, he can’t stop staring, the fingers curled around nothing, the nails somehow still clean and unbroken. Then all at once something emerges from the drain, inhumanly fast, and the arm is dragged away, into the dark.

**_sorry for the mess eddie-bear,_** Pennywise rasps from somewhere behind it**_, but i needed to eat. i’m a growing boy eddie and you wouldn’t believe just how hungry i am…_**

“No, no, no, no.” Eddie is whispering, sinking to his knees on the pavement. “You’re dead, you’re dead, they killed you, you bastard.”

He’s close to the black hole of the drain, too close and he should move, he needs to move but it’s just like before, he’s freezing up…

**_buh-bye eddie_**, The voice says and then it’s trickling away, **_stay safe now_**…

Richie finds him there a moment later, panting, his hands on Eddie’s jacket, his chest, his face.

“Are you hurt? Did he get you?” He’s saying and Eddie’s shaking his head but Richie’s panicking. “_Eddie, _did he_ hurt you_?”

“No, no.” Eddie says finding his voice. “Rich, I don’t understand.”

“We need to go. _Now.”_ Richie says and then he’s hurrying them away, past the still smoking car where, Eddie notices distantly, no-one has gotten out of the driver’s seat.

* * *

Back in the attic, Eddie paces up and down the rug, his hands flying as he talks.

“I don’t understand it, I just don’t understand. How did he survive? Are you sure you killed him? You did check right?” He pauses and looks over at Richie who is slumped over the table, head in his hands and rubbing at his eyes.

When he doesn’t respond Eddie switches his train of thought and keeps pacing.

“He’s never killed anyone like that before. In front of so many people. He must be getting cocky. Or _desperate_. Why now though?”

A thought occurs to him and then he’s crouching by Richie, touching his arm to get him to look up.

  
“Richie, did you see him while I was dead?” He asks and when Richie looks up his eyes are bloodshot.

“No.” Richie rasps out. “No Eddie I saw you. All I saw was you.”

Neither of them even tries to sleep that night so they both end up on the couch watching television with every light in the attic blazing. Eddie keeps checking the news on Richie’s phone, scanning through google for information on what happened outside of _La Tarantella _but the only thing he can find is a tweet about a late-night traffic accident in a residential area. Derry cleaning up it's messes like always.

Richie hasn’t said much, huddled into a ball with the TV reflected in his glasses and in an ad break Eddie stretches out his foot and nudges him gently.

“You got it last time.” He says softly. “_We_ got it. We can do it again.”

Richie gives him a long look and then he reaches down and rests his hand on Eddie’s socked foot gently, not holding it but _there._

“Yeah.” He says. “Yeah, okay. You got it Eds.”

* * *

That night Eddie dreams_ that he’s a spider. He’s deep down in the dark and no one is coming back for him, but that’s alright because he was always alone, he has never not been alone. He’s wrapping something up in his hands, around and around with silver sparkling thread and he looks down at his old face, his dark eyes and scarred cheek. It’s time to eat now though so he puts aside the squirming bundle and he’s so hungry, so he looks down and there are bodies around him, Beverly’s red hair with Ben still wrapped around her and next to them are Bill and Mike and he steps back onto a pair of glasses that break under his many legs- _

He wakes up panting for his inhaler and the TV is still blaring, a cartoon Frankenstein’s monster shambling across the screen. He shuts it off and it’s very quiet without it. Richie isn’t even snoring next to him and that worries Eddie until he sees the rise and fall of his chest. 

Eddie checks the clock and it’s 5AM, still dark outside but with the tinge of dawn on the horizon. He might as well get up now, this used to be a normal time for him back home. When he splashes his face in the mirror he looks up and for a moment there’s a strange sense of deja-vu, like Bowers is gonna crash in with his knife.

But Bowers is dead. Richie killed him.

_And isn’t that a weird thought to be comforted by? _

There is something though, that catches his attention, something about his eyes and when he leans forward he notices with a woozy kind of horror that his pupils are _drifting, moving in opposite directions…_

He falls back with a crash against the wall and this time and when Richie appears a moment later in the doorway, pale and frantic all Eddie can do is look up with him and say, “We need to call the others.”

* * *

Eddie had expected Richie to say yes at once, you got it bud, here, take my phone.

So when they’re still arguing about it by the time the sun comes up, his anger is fuelled by a desperate kind of disbelief.

“I don’t understand why you think this is a bad idea.” He’s saying for the fifth time, nearly growling at this point. “We need them Richie, I don’t understand the problem. They come back, we go down there and finish him off, no mess.”

“No mess?!” Richie exclaims. “May I remind you that you fucking _died last time?"_

Eddie takes an angry swig of coffee and retches when he finds it ice cold. It’s nearly 8 in the morning now and they’ve somehow managed to make breakfast, tidy up the mess from last night and get changed into new clothes all while yelling at each other pretty non-stop.

  
“The chances of that happening twice are pretty slim.” He tries to point out. “It would be really fucking unlucky.”

“It was pretty _unlucky_ the first time too.” Richie snaps face white. “Oh, and you’ve calculated those odds have you, _Mr Risk Analyst?_ How about the chances of Ben dying this time, or Bill or me? Have you put those in your fucking computer?”

“We’ve faced him twice now, we would be smarter-“

“The smart thing to do would have been to get out of here when I first suggested it, back at the restaurant that first night.” Richie says and then, he’s suddenly serious, moving forward to take Eddie’s hand in a way that’s very distracting when he’s trying to be pissed off.

“Seriously Eds, think about it. Why does it have to be us? Haven’t we given enough of our lives to it?” Richie says and Eddie is looking up at him and suddenly realizing how close they are. “We could just leave. You and me. The others are happy, they’re having the time of their lives, they don’t have to know. And you and me, maybe we could forget. We did before.”

“I don’t want to forget.” Eddie breathes out. “I hate this place; you know I do but my biggest regret is that I left and forgot everything about it.”

They’re very close now, too close almost and Eddie hates the feel of people being too near but for some reason it’s alright, it’s not _enough_ even, to be this close and not-

“We wouldn’t forget everything.” Richie says. “If we were together. I just want…I just want to be safe. For you to be safe.”

_I just want to keep you safe Eddie-Bear. Why won’t you let me?_

Eddie steps back and looks away.

  
“I need to get some air.” He mumbles and he doesn’t look back at Richie’s face when he leaves.

He just means to get outside for a second but when he’s on the street he doesn’t stop, the nervous energy in his body making him walk quickly.

All his life he’s been told he’s weak, he’s delicate and needs special handling, a careful touch. First his mom and then Myra and now even Richie, trying to protect him, look after him because he can’t be trusted to look after himself. He expects it from them, and they made him almost believe it, that he wasn’t strong enough, but Richie, Richie had told him he was _brave_. Maybe Eddie had been stupid to think it, but he had always thought that Richie didn’t think of him as someone to be coddled. They had been fighting with each other since they were kids and Eddie had always given as good as he got and never, _ever _felt less weak than when they were snapping at each other quick-fire, loud and annoying but _real_.

When he looks up, he’s in the main street and the sun is shining but the it's eerily empty. The hairs on the back of Eddie’s neck tingle and he turns around to leave when he hears the tinkle of broken glass coming from the drugstore across the road.

He’s crossing the road before his brain can tell his feet it’s a bad idea. Peeking in the door he sees the same white shelves and empty rows but there are scattered products on the floor, shampoo bottles and nail varnish and shaving cream. Eddie kneels down and picks up a packet of baby aspirin. There’s a cartoon turtle on the front, waving at him.

Something is shuffling around in the back.

  
“Hello?” Eddie calls. “Mr Keene?”

There’s no reply but the shuffling stops.

Eddie starts to back away into the street.

“Is that the voice of little Eddie Kaspbrak I hear?” Mr Keene calls out. “I’m kind of busy son, you’ll have to come back later. I’m sure I still have your prescription here somewhere.”

“Actually,” Eddie says, feeling pissed off all over again and walking down the aisle. “I want to talk to you about those inhalers-“

He turns the corner and stops, the horror hitting his body like a blow. Pennywise is crouched over the counter, eyes bright and thousands of teeth bared. A kid struggles in his arms, mouth covered by a grisly claw, his eyes bulging. He’s still wearing the fucking fortnite shirt.

**_oh eddie_**_,_ Pennywise says sadly, **_don’t you know they’re gazebos?_**

Eddie looks between them, between the kid and the Pennywise and his awful, awful smile and for a moment he thinks of turning around, of running away. Then he thinks about Richie telling him he was brave and the aspirin packet is in his hand and he throws it with all his might, thinking, _If I believe hard enough…_

It lands right in Pennywise’s gaping mouth, bounces off a tooth and falls harmlessly to the floor.

Eddie and the kid stare at it in horror.

There’s an awful, rasping sound that Eddie realizes with a cold sweat is laughter and Pennywise drops the kid, barrelling over to where Eddie has thrown himself back against a shelf, glass bottles of sweets shattering around his feet.

** _are you trying to give me a taste of my own medicine, eddie-spaghetti?_ **

His mouth is in Eddie’s face, his hot breath rolling over him, stinking and infectious and reeking.

“_You’ve been hanging out with that Tozier boy again, haven’t you_?” his mother’s voice is saying out of the rows and rows of teeth. “_Don’t lie to me Eddie-bear, I can smell it on you. He’s not clean, not like you sweetheart, he’ll give you something, I just know it.”_

“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.” Eddie can hear himself saying and all he can think is that Richie is going to be so _pissed_ at him, dying all over again when he’s just brought him back. Then just, as he thinks Pennywise will bite his head off, his scrabbling hand presses down on a jagged piece of glass.

The pain is minute and distant compared to the fear but Pennywise hisses and draws back like Eddie is the one who’s infected. He snarls, looking suddenly unsure and in the time it takes Eddie to blink he’s gone.

Across the aisle the kid is staring at Eddie as if he can somehow explain what the fuck just happened but all Eddie can do is try and catch his breath.

He nearly knocks Richie over when he runs into him on the way home, clutching at his shirt as Richie tells him with alarm to, “Breathe Eds, what happened to you? Are you still that pissed off at me, you look crazy.”

“Give me the phone Richie, I swear to God I’m not joking, I will throw up on you.” Eddie babbles at him, dragging him down a little by the collar. “I’ve just seen IT again and I am done with that _fucking clown_, I mean it, I’m done. This ends now.”

This time Richie doesn’t argue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I had to add the warning for gore when I added this chapter because I wasn’t expecting for it to get so dark lol. You also may have noticed that I changed the typing style for IT’s voice and the reason is very stupid; basically writing IT’s dialogue in all caps seemed like a good idea until he started talking to Eddie and I suddenly felt like I was writing Venom fic. Which is NOT the place I want people’s minds to go haha. Thank you so much to everyone who’s kudosed and commented so far!


	3. Chapter 3

In the end Richie wins the dubious right of telling the others, only barely managing to convince Eddie through a combination of begging (_how’s it gonna be for them getting called out of the blue by a zombie?) _and sheer height advantage when Eddie tries to wrestle him for the phone.

“Okay, okay, call them, message them, send a fucking telegram just hurry up.” Eddie snaps finally, throwing his hands up. He’s sheet white and jittery, giving off waves of panic that are freaking Richie out by pure proximity.

Richie wants to sit him down and make him drink a glass of water, or herbal tea or whatever it is people drink when they need to _calm the fuck down_ but he’s pretty sure Eddie would kill him for the delay.

What he wants more than that is to rewind time, go back to yesterday morning when they had been eating breakfast, back to Eddie wearing his clothes and eating his terrible pancakes. But that sort of fantasy went out the window the minute the human head had rolled past the Italian place.

“Give me a second.” Richie says and his finger hovers over Mike’s number in his phone. There’s a pause where Richie tries to think through what he could possibly say if Mike picks up.

_You know I said I would protect Derry, Mikey? You know how you thought you were finally escaping this nightmare? Well, psych!_

Eddie raises his eyebrows at him, arms crossed and practically tapping his foot.

“Okay, I’m calling now.” Richie says and then immediately loses his nerve. “Can we at least go back to the apartment? We’re in the middle of the street.”

“Richie, Jesus, who cares! I just saw Pennywise nearly _eat a kid_ in the middle of the _drugstore_!” Eddie explodes and then, as if the situation has suddenly hit him, the anger is gone, leaving him deflated and drained. He looks all at once as if he’s going to fall down and Richie can’t help himself, he’s already reaching out to steady him.

“Woah, cool your jets a second there, Eds. You’re ok, we’re ok.” Richie says, steering him over to a bench on the sidewalk patting his arm in a way that’s really more to reassure Richie than anything else. Eddie lets himself be led, docile for once in a way that’s more worrying than anything else.

“The fucking_ teeth_, Richie.” Eddie says, shuddering with his whole body. “He spoke with my mom’s voice.”

He slumps down onto the bench and puts his head in his hands, taking in long ragged breaths. Richie perches awkwardly beside him, not knowing what to do with his hands, feeling almost lightheaded from the urge to comfort. He thinks about a hug but chickens out at the last minute and instead opts for patting Eddie on the shoulder, making what he hopes are vaguely soothing noises.

Richie looks down at the phone.

When he calls it’s all over. They’ll come, he knows they will, and they’ll find out what he did. _Eddie _will find out what he did. And then, provided they even survive, provided they do the _fucking impossible_ and kill IT for good this time, Eddie will hate him forever.

Because Eddie had died to kill IT once and then Richie had come along with his, stupid, awful, _ridiculous feelings_ and stomped all over that sacrifice. And then lied to him, not just once but over and over.

Richie had known that soon Eddie would leave, had known while they were watching bad movies with Eddie’s feet practically in his lap, known in the grocery store, known in the restaurant with the goddamn candlelight.

_Enjoy this while it lasts_, a voice had said, _because pretty soon he’s going back to New York, back to his _wife_. Don’t waste your time hoping for more when you’ve already got the impossible, you’ve got him alive. Maybe he’ll call once in a while but it’s okay if he doesn’t just as long as you can know that he’s out there somewhere, with his boring job and weird eyebrows and bad taste in fashion._

Richie had known the bubble was going to pop at some point, but he had hoped for more time, just a little bit more.

“Are you thinking about Stan?” Eddie says next to him, almost whispering. When Richie looks up Eddie is looking over, one hand still in his hair, messing it up.

Richie doesn’t want to say _no, I was being more selfish than that_, but now he _is _thinking of Stan. Stan the man, rolling his eyes as a kid, Stan with his birds, Stan getting that last phone call and going upstairs to run a bath.

“How did Mike do this?” He asks. “What do I even say? They thought it was over.”

“Let me Richie.” Eddie says and it’s not panicked now, he’s trying to be kind but that’s worse.

“What about a text message?” Richie says desperately and it’s a cowardly idea, but Eddie chews his lip, considering.

Then he nods, decisive and Richie wants to faint in relief.

“Okay. We can write it together.”

* * *

It takes them about half an hour, even with the thought of IT stalking the streets. Mostly this is because Eddie spends so long scrolling through the ‘Losers’ group chat, being snarky about Mike’s road trip photos.

“You guys don’t mention me much do you?” He huffs, sounding annoyed and this is a crisis situation, but Richie still finds him almost aggressively cute. “Dog picture, dog picture, Bill’s stupid script, _another _dog picture, _Jesus,_ but no mention of your heroically dead friend?”

  
“What, did you want everyone to just be posting selfies of themselves in tears?” Richie asks and doesn’t mention that everyone had been very careful not to talk about Eddie in front of Richie, even on the stupid group chat.

“Kind of.” Eddie grumbles, scowling at Beverly’s turtles.

Their final draft of the message is also their tenth.

Richie had vetoed Eddie’s original idea; a two-mile-long essay of an explanation, starting with his resurrection and ending with a blow by blow account of the drugstore.

In turn Eddie had vetoed Richie’s suggestion which was a picture of Eddie giving a thumbs up with a caption reading: _Guess who’s back? Let me give you a hint, IT’s not just this guy!_

Instead they kept it simple:

_The situation in Derry has turned complicated. I’m so sorry to do this, but I need you all here again. Will explain more in person but you literally would not believe me if I said over the phone._

“Is it too cryptic?” Richie frets when it’s all typed out.

Eddie squints at it, head distractingly close as he leans in to look at the screen.

“I’m more worried it sounds too sincere. What if they don’t believe you wrote it?”

“Do you want me to add a little knock-knock joke at the end?” Richie asks sarcastically.

“Hmm.” Eddie says seriously. “Maybe a gif or something? To reassure them?”

“What like a fucking kitten and a ball of yarn?”

“Yeah, okay maybe no gif. Send it.”

Richie closes his eyes and does as he’s told. He expects to wait for hours but the response is almost instantaneous, as if they had all been waiting somehow.

_on our way,_ Bev says. _Ben is looking at flights now._

_I can pick you up at augusta_, Mike replies. _will be there by this evening_

A moment later the phone buzzes again and it’s Bill telling them to _sit tight he’ll be on the next plane. _

“Oh. They didn’t even question it.” Eddie says beside him, sounding so surprised and Richie wants to cry because they’re his friends and they love him so much they’ll drop everything just to come save him and he’s going to get them all killed for it. 

* * *

The others won’t arrive till late that night and it’s only 9AM so suddenly they have time to kill in the worst town in America.

The streets don’t feel safe, so they retreat to the attic where Eddie immediately pulls out the jumbo size pack of Twizzlers that he had bitched at Richie for getting yesterday.

“What?” He says in answer to Richie’s raised eyebrows, muffled by red liquorice. “I’m stressed. This is a stressful situation.”

Watching Eddie suck on red candy is too much for Richie’s delicate state of mind right now so he starts rummaging through drawers to avoid looking at him.

“You think Mike has any video games around here? You don’t think he just_ reads_ all day, do you?” Richie wonders out loud. “Talk about a nerd. No wonder he and Stan got on so well.”

“Do you think they still have _Street Fighter_ at the arcade? Jesus, you were obsessed with that game, you remember trying to make me play when my arm was still broken?”

Richie lets out an involuntary shudder because that would be just perfect wouldn’t it, the icing on the fucking cake, to take Eddie down to the arcade and give him a little tour of his childhood traumas.

_On your right, you’ll see the spot where I first learnt to be afraid of cute boys and emotional vulnerability. Notice the internalised homophobia and self-loathing folks, it’s beautiful at this time of year_!

“Aha!” Richie says a little desperately, “Eddie-Baby our troubles are over- I found the Scrabble!”

It’s so dusty that Eddie insists on digging through his bags until he finds the wet wipes and even then, he holds his t shirt up over his mouth as he cleans it down so he doesn’t inhale any dust. Richie wants to make fun of him, but the way the material has ridden up has revealed the smallest glimpse of his stomach so instead Richie just shifts in his seat uncomfortably, sneaking glances.

In some ways it would all be so much easier if he wasn’t still so horribly attracted to Eddie. This would all have seemed so much more noble if he had fucked everything up for someone who he might have had a crush on once but is now just a very good, no-funny-stuff friend. It had been like a double gut punch when Richie had walked into the restaurant a month ago, the memory of Eddie and the reality of how _still-into him_ Richie was. As a kid he had spent a lot of time thinking about Eddie’s eyes and floppy hair and freckles but now Eddie was all grown up it was much harder to keep his thoughts on the pure and platonic side.

It would be easier still if Richie just wanted sex from him, but the really sad part was that Richie wanted _everything_.

“I can’t believe Mike kept this.” Eddie says, as he sets out the board. “I remember playing it in the clubhouse with the dirt from the ceiling falling on it. That was gross. “

“I remember you stomping off when Bill kept winning.”

“At least Bill didn’t cheat.” Eddie says darkly. “Unlike you and Beverly.”

“Ben always let her get away with it.” Richie remembers, grinning. “What a sap.”

“Hey, I let you get away with it too.” Eddie says and then flushes and gets very involved in counting out the tiles.

The box looks like it hasn’t been touched since the eighties and there’s something kind of sad about the idea of Mike holding onto it when he moved here. Richie wonders if Mike ever found other people to play with after they all moved away, if he’s invited people up here to watch TV with or cook for or sleep with in that big lonely bed. Part of Richie thinks that Mike must have been a little like him, alone at the end of every day and thinking that was normal, that was how he was built.

_But no,_ Richie remembers. _Mike never forgot._ He must have looked at the scrabble and remembered Bill’s crazy vocabulary and Richie trying to play FUCK for a triple word score.

For all Eddie’s accusations of cheating he keeps trying to play the names of various prescription drugs (_Xanax, just let me have Xanax_) but Richie is in the clear lead thanks to _CHUTZPAH _for seventy-seven points. It feels weirdly normal to have this moment, in the middle of all the horrible shit but neither of them brings up the fact they might die at any moment and Richie almost finds himself forgetting. IT and Derry and the others seem so very far away, and Richie thinks maybe he would be happy in this moment for the rest of his life, playing Scrabble on the floor with Eddie eating candy. In the last few days Richie has found himself having this thought a lot.

It should be impossible, Richie thinks, for the best and worst parts of your whole life to be so jumbled up in each other, to take place over such a short time. You’d think they would be rationed out a bit better.

When Richie is in the middle of considering his next move (he has C,L,O,W,N but he doesn’t want to tempt fate) Eddie clears his throat awkwardly.

“Hey. Can I ask a question that might be weird?”

Richie freezes up because fuck, that could mean _anything. _

“Shoot.” He says, trying to sound glib and doing little finger guns which he regrets immediately.

Eddie swallows. “Did I uh, say anything before I died? To you? Or the others, I guess, I don’t know. Did I have time?”

Richie takes a deep breath and plays TOWN for seven points while he thinks.

“You told us how to kill IT.” He says when he trusts himself to talk. “You told us about that thing with the leper. How you managed to fight back. You saved our asses, I think, in the end.”

  
“Oh.” Eddie says and he looks strangely disappointed. “Was that all?”

Richie looks up and Eddie is giving him the full force big brown eyes.

“Uh well, you told me you fucked my mom.” Richie says, grinning.

Eddie looks at him for a moment and then puts a hand over his face, making an odd strangled kind of noise. At first Richie thinks he’s laughing so he laughs too but then he sees Eddie’s shoulders begin to shake.

“Hey, hey Eds. It’s okay, the joke wasn’t that bad.” He says, reaching out to touch him but thinking better of it, hand just brushing his arm instead. “It was actually pretty funny in the moment.”

“Fuck. _Fuck_, sorry.” Eddie says and then he’s rubbing his face almost violently. “It’s just those are the worst last words I’ve ever heard.”

Richie doesn’t say, _why, what did you want to say?_ So instead he just nods sympathetically and says, “Yeah, well improv is hard.”

* * *

Around 10PM, they get a text from Ben saying the three of them are just fifteen minutes away. Eddie and Richie go down to the library to meet them.

It feels like everything’s happening shockingly fast, even though it’s been nearly a whole day of lounging around, playing more old board games and watching TV. Eddie had kept trying to clean things until Richie had lured him in to sit down with the prospect of snacks. The appetite hadn’t gone away and nearly all the food they bought yesterday is gone now. It was cute at first but now it’s starting to worry Richie a little, the way Eddie seems endlessly hungry, the dark circles around his eyes.

That and the prospect of imminent death aside, it had probably been one of the best days of Richie’s life.

Richie’s stomach is rolling so he walks nervously up and down while Eddie hops up on a desk, swinging his legs slightly. Richie wants to make a crack about his feet not touching the ground but he’s too distracted by the dark stain on the wood where he killed Bowers.

“Are you sure you don’t want to do this upstairs?” Eddie asks him but Richie shakes his head.

It’s stupid but the attic feels like a kind of sanctuary now, with the scrabble board and sofa and kitchen table and if everyone is gonna shout at him then Richie would rather it be here, in a place he already hates.

“I never asked.” Eddie begins and then seems to take a second to think. “I never asked about Bowers. About how you feel about it.”

“About killing a man? Oh, just great, I think I have a taste for it now.” Richie says lightly but when Eddie gives him a look, he drops the act. “I don’t know. I have nightmares.”

  
“He would have killed Mike. If you hadn’t.”

“I know. And he tried to kill you. But in the end Pennywise got him worse than us.”

“And he was alone.” Eddie says softly. “At least we had each other.”

Richie thinks about the scar on Eddie’s cheek, about Bowers holding Mike down in the stream, carving letters into Ben’s skin. About him calling Richie slurs in the middle of the arcade.

“I was so _scared_ of him when I was a kid. “He admits in a rush. “I hated him, _so much Eddie_, I hated him so much it scared me. I still hate him now. I’m not sad he’s dead. But I wish I hadn’t killed him.”

“I think Pennywise killed him long before you did.” Eddie says and if Richie wasn’t in love with him before, he would have fallen for him right now, just for saying that.

There’s a beep from his phone and it gives Richie a moment to look away and breathe normally.

  
“They’re nearly here.” He says quietly. He feels like he’s going to be sick again, in the same place he was last time.

“Do you think they brought the dog with them?” Eddie asks him and despite everything it makes Richie laugh.

“Would you bring a pet to Derry?”

“Yeah, I guess not. I like dogs though.” Eddie muses. “Even though they shed everywhere. I think I’m gonna get one. After all of this.”

The thought of an ‘after this’ makes Richie reckless enough to blurt out, “I like dogs too. What breed do you want? Pomeranian?”

  
“_No_.” Eddie says decisively and makes a face. “He was kind of cute though. Before getting all…toothy.”

“He was.” Richie says, instead of saying, _move to L.A with me and I’ll buy you all the tiny stupid dogs you could possibly want._

Then there’s the noise of a car pulling up outside and Richie’s heart is beating loudly in his ears when he goes to open the door. Behind him Eddie hangs back in the shadows, waiting. 

* * *

Beverly is out of the car door and running over to him before Mike’s even pulled the car properly to a halt.

“I wish I could say long time no see- “, Richie starts but she’s already pulling him into a hug, his mouth suddenly full of red hair.

“I’m so glad to see you. I thought….” She says, muffled into his shoulder and then trails off.

“Right back at you Marsh.” Richie says, holding her tightly. Behind her Ben lopes up the driveway and gives Richie a little wave. His arms still full of Beverly, Richie awkwardly tries to return it.

“What’s going on Richie, what happened?” Ben asks, frowning but still disarmingly hot.

“I’ll explain everything.” Richie says, knowing he probably won’t. “It’s been a lot. I might need a whiteboard or a slideshow or something.”

Then Beverly goes rigid in his arms and her arms drop. When Richie looks down her eyes are the size of saucers, looking past him, through the open door.

Richie turns around to give Eddie a look, because that _hadn’t been the plan_ _damn it,_ and it had been Eddie’s stupid plan anyway, to at least sit them down first.

It’s hard to be pissed when Eddie looks so small and nervous, standing in the light of a desklamp and hugging his arm to his side as if it’s still in a cast.

  
“Hi guys.” He says softly. “Uh, surprise?”

Then Beverly is running over and nearly knocking him over with the force of her hug, sobbing into his shoulder and Ben is tripping after her, fluttering around the two of them like a giant stubbly moth, saying, _Oh my god, Oh my god, Eddie, Eddie, oh God._

Eddie’s eyes are huge and nervous under the attention, patting Beverly on the back gingerly and giving Richie a look that says _help!_ over her shoulder.

Richie makes a face at him that he hopes says,_ this is your fault zombie-man. What happened to taking it slow? _but he isn’t sure if it translates.

  
“When did this happen? _How_ did this happen?” Ben asks, looking between Richie and Eddie open mouthed. “Is this why you brought us back?”

“It’s not everything.” Richie says and then, because the plan is already fucked, and he might as well get it over with, “Pennywise isn’t dead either.”

Beverly stops crying and saying Eddie’s name with a weird kind of hiccup and all the colour drains from Ben’s face. In the silence someone clears their throat and Richie turns to see Mike in the doorway, car keys in his hand.

“Richie, man.” He says, sounding wrecked. “I was gone for _two days_.”

* * *

It takes a long time to tell the story and that’s partly because Richie’s having to make most of it up as he goes along.

“I saw Eddie again.” He admits, directing it mostly at Mike. “After Neibolt. In a cinema, the bathroom. The hall of mirrors. It’s like he was trying to tell me something.”

“Why didn’t you say?” Mike asks at the same time that Ben mutters, _what were you doing at the fairground?_

“I guess I was hoping our theory was right. That it was just leftover whatever.”

“You didn’t tell me either.” Eddie accuses from where he’s sandwiched between Ben and Beverly.

(Neither of them can seem to stop touching him, as if reassuring themselves he’s real. Which hey, Richie can relate. Eddie looks twitchy though, uncomfortable in a way that Richie secretly thinks, _hopes, _he wasn’t when it was Richie doing the same thing.)

“You know I think I dreamt of it. I thought they were dreams at least.” Eddie goes on, sounding distant. “Of mirrors. Mirrors and…Jennifer Anniston?”

“Yeah. Yeah that movie sucked.” Richie says grinning, feeling a rush of joy that it had actually somehow been partly Eddie all those times, not just Pennywise fucking with him.

In the version of the story that Richie tells, he goes down to the sewers and finds Eddie staggering back the other way, dirty and amnesiac. He leaves out the balloons and the voices in the dark. He leaves out the deal.

“I can’t believe it.” Ben says, staring at Eddie and his healed cheek. “You look so alive. You actually look good.”

“Says you.” Eddie mumbles and Mike snorts loudly.

Beverly doesn’t smile though; she’s looking at Richie with tears in her eyes and suddenly Richie realizes that _she knows_. Beverly was always the most perceptive, the one who could assess a situation in a second, right from the moment she had helped them shoplift in the drugstore as kids.

Richie’s too ashamed to talk much after that, too aware of Beverly watching him so he lets Eddie take over and talk about the body in the street outside _La Tarantella_ and the little kid in the drugstore. He’s loud and animated, his hands flying all over the place and Richie interjects now and again but mainly he just watches him.

“It’s not like him.” Ben is fretting. “He’s usually working in the shadows. He was never this cocky.”

“He said he was hungry.” Eddie says and then something passes over his face, a look of revulsion, gone as soon as it appears.

“So what, we should just get him a Snickers or something?” Richie snarks.

“Judy Lane.” Mike says quietly. He’s looking at his phone and it makes sense that Mike would know how to get the information they couldn’t, Mike’s been doing this his whole life.

“She was a teacher. We used to talk sometimes when she was checking out books. She liked P.G Wodehouse. They’re calling it a car crash; the driver was some salesman passing through. Henry Wentz.”

  
No one knows what to say after that, but Ben gets up to put his arm around Mike’s shoulders. All Richie can think is that _he did that_, that Judy Lane would be alive if it wasn’t for him.

“Has there been anything else?” Beverly asks. “Since this morning?”

There’s a sudden loud bang at the door and all of them start, their heads whipping up as if synchronised.

There’s a long silence and then Richie gets up off the desk.

  
“Don’t open the door.” Eddie says in a rush, eyes wide and terrified.

Then there’s another bang and Bill is calling out, “L-let me in Richie! I’m f-f-fucking freezing.”

There’s an audible sound as the five of them let out a collective breath.

Richie’s still nervous when he unlocks the door but it really is just Bill, pushing in and dripping water everywhere. It’s raining outside now and very dark.

“Wh-what is it Rich? Are y- are you okay?” Bill asks, hugging him quickly and then stepping back to examine him, as if Richie might have an arm missing or something.

  
“Hey Big Bill, I’m okay but listen-“Richie starts but it’s too late, Bill has seen Eddie and he’s gone very, very still.

“Hey Bill.” Eddie says, doing a dorky little wave but Bill doesn’t smile back.

“Beverly.” He says instead, low and intent. “G-get away from him. _N-Now_.”

Eddie freezes up and Richie looks between them, confused. “What the fuck dude?”

Beverly stands up and starts saying, “Bill listen it’s really him, it’s Eddie-“

“That’s not Eh-Eddie.” Bill spits out and he looks angrier than Richie’s ever seen him. “IT’s just w-w-wearing his fuh-fucking _face_.”

“Bill…” Eddie says but Bill cuts him off with a sharp gesture.

  
“Shut up, St- stop it. We saw him die, he’s _dead._ Eddies d-dead. IT did this with G-G-_Georgie _too_.”_

Mike and Ben stand up, trying to object, but Bill is staring at Eddie like he’s obscene, a monster and Richie steps in front of him, blocking Bill’s view.

“Listen, I know this is a shock, but you need to calm down, right now.” He hisses, getting up in Bill’s face like they’re fourteen and Eddie’s arm has just been broken. “He’s back Bill, it’s really him I promise you.”

Bill doesn’t punch him or push him away; he just looks devastated.   


“Richie, Ruh- Richie this is what IT _does, _IT u-uses the people you_ love. _That thing isn’t, isn’t him. Eddie c-couldn’t have survived. You know that.”

“It was the magic.” Richie says desperately. “There was just enough left-“

“Richie.” He hears Beverly say from somewhere behind him. “You need to tell us the truth now. It’s the only way. We can’t do this unless we have all the information.”

Richie looks over at her, her arm still around Eddie who looks back at him, confused.

“What does that mean?” Eddie asks him. “Richie?”

They’re all silent, looking at him but Richie can’t look at Eddie when he says it, he’s still a coward after everything, so he looks back at Bill instead.

“I went down into the storm drains.” He says in a low voice, the words rasping out of his throat. “I made…IT offered me a deal. _One life for another. _He gave Eddie back. But the price was...the price…”

“You brought him back too. Pennywise.” Mike says woodenly and it’s not a question.

Richie gives a jerky nod, his eyes burning, and he can hear a ragged inhalation from behind him but he can’t look, can’t turn around, as if he had never left the storm drains at all.

“Oh Richie…” Bill breathes out and when Richie looks up, he’s crying. “_What have you done_?”

There’s a long horrible moment where no one says anything.

  
“I have to…I...” Richie hears Eddie say, voice horrible and constricted. “I’ll be outside.”

Richie hears his footsteps, and then the clunk of the door but all Richie can do is look at the floorboards, the faded varnish and the small dark spaces between the wood. He wants to crawl into them and go to sleep, wake up in a thousand years.

He feels Bill’s hand on his shoulder, but he pulls away roughly because he doesn’t deserve the comfort.

Turning around he looks at all of them, his friends, Bill and Ben horrified, Beverly unbearably sad. Mike’s expression is unreadable, shuttered.

“You want me to say sorry?” Richie says roughly. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I’m sorry they died Mike and I’m sorry I dragged you all back into this, you know I am, but I’m not sorry I did it. I can’t apologise for that. I would do it again if I had to. I would.”

He feels raw, unhinged, and when Bill reaches out again Richie is ready to fight him, to throw the first punch.

Instead Bill just puts his arms around him and holds him until Richie stops shaking, until he reaches up to hold him back. Richie smells perfume and then Bev has her hand on his head, brushing the hair out of his glasses. When Bill lets Richie go, Ben is there to steady him with a hand on his arm.

“You couldn’t just move on like a normal person? You had to raise the fucking dead instead?” Mike says and he sounds angry, but he moves in hugs Richie anyway, rib-bruising in a way that feels like he's letting some of the anger out.

“I guess.” Richie says, laughing in despite of himself. "I guess I couldn't."

When Mike lets him go Richie takes off his glasses and scrubs at his face. “I have to say I thought you guys would be a lot more pissed off at me.”

“Oh I’m still _pissed_.” Bill snaps and Beverly nods in agreement, eyes narrowed.

  
“You should have told us.” Ben says softly.

“I brought Pennywise back. I undid everything we worked for. I thought you would hate me.” Richie says and he should _shut up_ because it’s almost like he’s trying to convince them.

“Yeah.” Mike says. “But…”

“It’s Eddie.” Bev finishes and then Richie starts up, the momentary relief gone.

  
“Oh fuck, _Eddie._” He breathes out.

They all look towards the door. Richie starts moving toward it, but Bill puts a hand on his arm.

“I muh-meant what I said. It, it could still be a trick. P-P-Pennywise doesn’t…_play fair_.”

“Thanks Bill but I’m more scared of Eddie than any stupid clown.” Richie tells him and before he leaves, he hesitates, considering. “Maybe uh, give us a few minutes? This could get ugly.”

Ben holds his hands up. “Believe me I don’t want to be there when you try and explain this either.”

Beverly and Mike are nodding emphatically behind him and Richie winces and steps out into the rain.

* * *

Eddie is on the library steps, hugging his knees to his chest. He’s staring out into the dark and looks even smaller than usual, shivering in just a thin t-shirt.

Richie takes off his jacket and drops it in Eddie’s lap, like a peace treaty or some desperate bribe.

_Take this and love me! Please! Or at least don’t hate me too much!_

“What’s this?” Eddie says, blinking when he looks up. His tone is calm but that’s actually scarier.

“Uh, it’s a jacket. My jacket.” Richie says like a dumbass. “You looked cold.”

“Richie, I don’t need a fucking jacket,” Eddie says, starting off slowly, his voice getting louder and shriller as he goes on. “I need an _explanation_, I need you to say something, anything, that will make this make sense. Because I don’t get it, I’m sorry, I just don’t understand.”

Richie sits down next to him on the steps and swallows hard.

“What’s not to get? You were dead. You were dead and I couldn’t handle it. So, when I got the chance to get you back, I took it. If you want to hate me now, I understand, that’s fine go ahead and hate me. I still won’t regret it. So fuck you, I’m not sorry. You’re alive.”

  
“This is the shittiest apology I’ve ever heard.” Eddie snaps at him. “And I don’t hate you, you _massive dick_, I’m – “

Eddie cuts himself off and puts his head in his hands. “_Fuck_.”

They sit there for a moment, Richie still breathing hard. He feels mildly stunned and too emotionally stupid for any of this. Eddie said he didn’t want the jacket but he’s twisting it in his hands, white knuckled.

“You don’t hate me?” Richie says at last, because he doesn’t quite believe it.

Eddie finally, finally turns to look at him. “You shouldn’t have lied to me. I’m mad at you for that. And for being such a reckless idiot, because you had _no idea_ it would work, IT could have killed you the minute you went down there. But I don’t hate you. I don’t- I don’t think I’m capable of it.”

They look at each other for a long, unbearable moment and Richie glances down at Eddie’s mouth before he can stop himself.

“And I think…I think I know that if it were the other way around…” Eddie says and he’s struggling to get it out, to say it out loud. “If it were you down there and IT offered me a deal…”

And then he stops, screwing up his face. “Do you smell smoke?”

“What?” Richie says because he’s still caught on Eddie’s closeness, the rain in his hair.

“Smoke, I can smell- “Eddie says and then he’s yelping, scrambling up from the stairs and yanking Richie up with him. “Shit, Richie, that’s fire!”

Richie follows his pointing finger and sees the thick black smoke pouring out from under the front doors at the same time that the flames leap up in the windows, orange and unnaturally fast.

  
“The door, get the door!” Richie says and then Eddie is scrabbling at the door handle, cursing when it rattles uselessly under his hands. Richie slams against the door with his shoulder but it’s immovable, a solid mass of wood. The flames are leaping higher in the windows and he can hear the others now, shouting for help.

“The windows!” Eddie says, coughing and backing away. “Could we smash them?”

“Try it! Quickly, this place is all wood.” Richie shouts and when he tries the door handle it opens easily under his hand, with a soft click. He pulls the doors open and falls inside, bracing himself against the heat and smoke but as he turns to call for Eddie the door slams shut in his face.

“Fuck, fuck, _Eddie_!” Richie is saying, slamming himself against the door but it’s immovable again and Eddie is on the other side of three inches of solid oak. He can hear Eddie yelling for him and banging on the other side but it’s faint. For a moment Richie thinks he’s going to have a heart attack, because you should never split up, _never ever,_ it’s rule fucking one of _Scooby Doo_, but Beverly’s voice breaks him out of it.

“Richie! Help us!” she calls, and Richie makes himself turn around.

The library is ablaze, the shelves towering infernos of books and paper in every direction. The smoke is filling up the ceiling in thick black billows and already the heat is unbearable. In front of him Beverly and Ben stand back to back over Mike who’s frozen on the floor, shaking.

“You have to move, Muh- Mikey, you have to move.” Bill is saying from where he’s crouched on the floor next to him, but Mike looks paralyzed, eyes flickering wildly and breathing in short sharp bursts.

Richie remembers his parents, how they died, and he’s by Mike’s side in a second saying, “Hey Mikey, this is real, ok, this happening and you have to _get up._”

  
“Is there a buh-back exit?” Bill asks him, coughing into his fist and Richie nods.

“This way, in the next room.”

“We have another problem.” Ben calls out over the noise of a shelf collapsing. “There’s something in here with us.”

“There!” Beverly yells and Richie spots it just as it disappears behind a burning bannister, the long curved claws nearly dragging on the floor, the black fur and white, white teeth.

“Oh shit, really?” He mutters but then Bill is dragging Mike up and Richie is helping, staggering under the weight.

They make it three steps towards the back entrance, Ben and Beverly behind them, when the ceiling in front of them collapses in a wall of flame, so hot and bright that Richie nearly drops Mike just pulling his hands up in front of his face.

“The front door!” Bill shouts next to him. “It’s th-the only way!”

They turn again but the werewolf is in their way, eight feet tall and slavering, the tatters of a letterman jacket around his shoulders.

“What the fuck?” Ben says but Richie can just stare, mouth open, at the bleeding muzzle, the beady black eyes rolling in the monster’s head.

**_did you really think you could bully me to death?_** Pennywise says through the dripping mouth of the werewolf. **_did you really think it would be that easy? i’m older than your ugly little planet, i’m older than the stars. did you think you could walk away from me? i told you before, we all float here!_**

It’s at this moment that Richie’s car smashes through the oak doors, sending chunks of wood flying through the smoke. The car hits IT full on, sending him howling into the burning shelves. A figure, half falls out of the driving seat, coughing and it’s Eddie, looking like the most beautiful thing Richie has ever seen.

“Eddie the flames!” Beverly shouts out behind him but as Eddie limps towards them, _they part around his feet, _as if he was the goddamn Khaleesi.

“We need to move!” Bill shouts again and then Richie realizes with a shock he isn’t talking to Mike but _Richie, _who’s just standing there like he’s still caught in the fucking deadlights.

“Yeah, danger zone, I got it.” Richie says but before he can move, he sees the figure emerging from the flames behind Eddie, the wolf smouldering but still alive and _angry_.

**_no more games,_** Pennywise spits through rows of sharp fangs, **_you don’t play by the rules _**

“Eddie!” Richie yells and lets go of Mike to stumble forward but Eddie is already turning. The wolf grins and pulls itself up to its full height. Richie can see the stitching on the jacket, it reads _Tozier_ and he wants to plead with Eddie _not to look, please don’t look_, like he’s in Neibolt and fourteen again.

**_i’m going to kill you again eddie-bear_** the wolf roars, **_i’m going to eat you up and spit out the bones I’m going to grind you in into little pieces I’m going to take you apart bit by bit_**

** **

Eddie looks up at the wolf, the horrible awful truth of him and says in a shaky voice, “No. No I don’t think you will, you piece of shit. Not this time.”

Richie’s only a few paces away but it’s too late, he’s too slow and Eddie is going to die in front of him all over again and Pennywise opens his jaw wide and……

_Hesitates. _

It’s only a moment but it’s enough time for Beverly to pull up a small shining handgun and aim it at IT’s heart.

“These bullets are silver.” She says and pulls the trigger.

* * *

Outside, when they’re all coughing and shaking on the rain-wet lawn, Bill turns to Beverly.

“Since when do you ha-have a _fucking gun?” _

“Let’s just say my ex didn’t take the divorce well. It’s a precaution.” She says, and Ben puts his arm around her, pulling her in close.

“You looked really cool. I almost forgot to be scared.” He tells her. “Are you okay?”

“Better now, new kid.” Beverly says and kisses him. Ben still looks a little surprised by it, even now, like he hasn’t gotten used to the fact he can kiss her back.

Richie, who is sitting next to Eddie on the grass, looks away and feels a weird kind of jealousy.

“You’re my wearing my jacket.” He notices. It looks too big on him and also, perfect.

  
“The car keys were in the pocket.” Eddie says, and then, somewhat defensively, “Why? Do you want it back?”

“Uh no, you can keep it for a bit. I guess. I mean you don’t want to get bronchitis or whatever it’s probably bad for the fake asthma.” Richie mumbles.

“Sh- should we kiss too or something?” He hears Bill whisper to Mike, _not quietly enough_. “Feeling a b-bit left out here.”

“Buy me a drink first Denbrough, my house just burnt down.” Mike says morosely.

Richie winces. “I’m really sorry Mikey.”

Mike sighs and then gives this shrug, like _what can you do_. “At least I don’t have to pack up now.”

They watch the library burn. Richie feels kind of sad too, thinking of the shitty pull-out couch and the tiny shower and the scrabble board. All of it will be ash by morning. This is Derry and the fire trucks will always come too late.

“How the hell did you get silver bullets?” Eddie asks Beverly as the flames reach the roof, a blurry orange mirage through the rain. 

“Craigslist.” Richie answers for her, because it has to be Craigslist.

“They aren’t silver.” Beverly says. “I just thought that if I believed it enough in the moment…”

Then she sighs. “I wish I’d hit his heart. Maybe that would have killed him.”

“Speaking of that,“ Eddie says hesitantly. “I think I have a theory.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is only half of what I wanted to write in this chapter and it's still so fucking LONG i'm sorry. Hence the added chapter but we are getting close now, promise! This was a hard one to write. Partly because it's harder to write group conversations lol but also because there was a lot more action and a lot less horror in this one. 
> 
> I thought a loooong time about how the others would react to Richie doing this and I know a lot of you thought that they (and eddie in particular) would be purely pissed. For a while I thought that too but then I thought about that group hug in the quarry and Bill catching himself when he gets pissed at Eddie for freezing up in the Neibolt house. I think that they realize that despite all the horror they love each other more than anything. Idk maybe I'll regret playing it this way but I also didn't want to slow down the plot with too much melodrama. More than I have already anyway. 
> 
> ANYWAY: thank you so so much to everyone who's read and kudosed and especially commented. I literally treasure every comment I get and love the feedback so thank you so much!! Don't hesitate to tell me what you thought (even if that's you thinking Richie should have been decked lol).


	4. Chapter 4

“As long as your theory doesn’t involve going back in the goddamn drain, I’m all ears.” Mike says.

“Yeah, Eds c’mon, share with the class.” Richie pipes up.

“Not my name.” Eddie says but he’s distracted, turning the idea over in his head. He’s thinking of the flames that shrank back from his feet, the feel of the glass shard cutting into his hand. It’s insane and even considering it makes him want to throw up but maybe…

“Eddie?” Ben prompts gently.

“Wh-why don’t we go somewhere i-inside first?” Bill suggests. “It’s r-raining pretty hard.”

He’s looking at Eddie with the same sort of weird expression he’s had on ever since they ran out of the burning building. Eddie’s grateful for the interruption though because he doesn’t think he’s ready to say out loud the horrible thought floating beneath the surface of his brain.

“This is Derry, nothing is open after 11pm.” Beverly points out. “Unless we want to go back to the Townhouse?”

No one looks particularly excited for that.

“There’s a bar down by the canal.” Mike says hesitantly. “It’s not great but it’s open till 5. _Lloyds_.”

“Wait, before we do this, does anyone have any significant or traumatic childhood memories attached to this place?” Richie asks and when everyone shakes their heads no, he shrugs. “Okay, I’m in then. “

Eddie had never been old enough to go to any bars in Derry, not even with a fake ID. The closest he had come was drinking his mom’s stolen cherry liquor with Richie one summer evening in the Barrens. Eddie had pretended to be drunker than he was so he could lean his head against Richie’s shoulder, but he had still thrown up the next morning anyway. His mom had kept him out of school for a week after that little adventure.

“We can take my car.” Mike says. “But I can’t fit all of us.”

“Well I would offer mine but _someone_ just crashed it into a burning building.”

  
“Oh, I’m sorry, next time I’ll let you burn to death.” Eddie snipes but even as he said it, he’s seeing Richie’s stupid polyester clothes melting into his skin, his hair on fire, his glasses cracking from the heat.

  
“M-me and Eddie cuh-can drive there in my car.” Bill says and Eddie can practically see Richie’s hackles rise.

“Cool. I’ll come with.” Is all he says, sounding very much like it isn’t cool, at all. 

“No, it’s okay.” Eddie interjects. “I’ll ride with Bill. We’ll be right behind you.”

This last he says directly to Richie, trying to say, _It’s alright, I’ll be fine._

Richie gives him a long look and then he nods reluctantly. “Okay, whatever, let’s just get this show on the road. Point the way to the alcohol Mikey.”

* * *

Neither Bill nor Eddie say a word until they’re on the road with the windscreen wipers going and Mike’s backlights glowing red through the rain in front of them.

“So are you still-“Eddie starts at the same time that Bill goes, “L-listen Eddie I’m-“.

They stop and Eddie clears his throat awkwardly. “You go first.”

“I wuh-wanted to say sorry. F-For what I said back there. It’s j-just that you didn’t see Richie wh-when you…you _died_. He was….”

Eddie waits, holding his breath. He’s not sure what he wants Bill to say. Richie had known him for two days as an adult, had only just remembered him as a kid so there would be no reason for Richie to feel anything in particular about his death beyond a vague sense of regret but…

But Richie had gone down to Hell for him. Nearly literally. Richie had made a deal with the fucking devil just to bring him back. And Eddie doesn’t understand it, why Richie would do that for him, the only explanation that makes sense is one so surreal and impossible that he can’t even let himself think it.

“He was not good.” Bill says finally, sighing. “And when I s-saw you I thought…af-after _Georgie…”_

“It’s okay Bill. I understand. I wouldn’t really believe it either if I wasn’t me. And even then, I’m not sure I do.” Eddie says and then it’s coming pouring out of him, the fear. “I think maybe you’re right not to trust me. I’m not sure if I trust myself right now. It’s too easy, all of this. I should be dead. I’ve been having these dreams-”

Bill has been listening intently but suddenly he swears and slams on the breaks, sending them both slamming forward into their seatbelts. Eddie looks up and sees, just for a moment, a woman on the road with red hair and a bloody shirt, smiling at them.

Then the car skids and Bill wrestles back control of the steering wheel and she’s gone.

“What the fuck was that?” Eddie says, high pitched but Bill is white knuckled around the wheel and breathing heavily.

“Sh-she..” He starts but he’s stammering too hard to say it.

“Did you see the blood? Should we stop?” Eddie asks, twisting around in his seat to look back.

“It’s fuh-fake blood.” Bill manages to get out. “Stage makeup. Sh-she isn’t real. That was Au-_Audra_. I just cuh-called her in L.A. IT’s trying to get to me.”

“Audra, your wife Audra?”

“Yeah.” Bill says and he’s looking a little calmer, his eyes fixed on the red lights ahead. “She uh- we’re having d-difficulties.”

Eddie winced. _Another Loser marriage bites the dust._ “Oh, I’m uh, sorry to hear that man.”

Bill shrugs. “I r-ran off here. Dropped ev-everything and didn’t t-tell her why. I couldn’t. Where to fuh-_fucking start_?”

Eddie can’t imagine what it must be like, to go through what they had and get back and not be able to tell the person you loved why you couldn’t sleep at night, why you woke up crying. Myra was a nurse so she had written him prescriptions for the sleep disorders, the anxiety, the depression and Eddie had never known why it was that he had always seemed to need so much fixing, why he couldn’t just exist and be happy when it seemed so easy for everyone else. How much worse would it have been if he had actually loved her? Loved her and not been able to explain.

“I’m getting a divorce.” He blurts out. “Or uh, I am divorced now. I guess.”

He sneaks a glance over at Bill, who looks weirdly unsurprised by this outburst. 

“Have you t-told Richie?”

“Why would I tell Richie?” Eddie asks him and swears he sees Bill rolling his eyes.

“N-No reason.”

“Let’s talk about something else.” Eddie snaps, flustered. “Distracted driving is one of the main causes of vehicle accidents in the US.”

“I-I’m not the one who’s distracted Eddie.” Bill mutters and then smiles for the first time since he’s come back. “God, I muh-missed you so much.”

* * *

They pull up outside of a shitty dive bar that looks like it’s only barely passed its health permits and as Eddie gets out the car, Richie is already bounding over to them.

“Took your sweet time, Eduardo.” He says, and then leans in so close Eddie feels his heart stutter. “Are you okay? What did our fearless leader say?”

_He said when I died you ‘weren’t good, so what does that mean?_ Eddie wants to ask. He doesn’t, because he could never ask for the truth like that, so easily. It’s part of why he couldn’t bring himself to be angry with Richie for lying to him, because how could he ask Richie for honesty, when Eddie has never, _could never _be honest with him?

“He said he didn’t want to ride in a car with your giraffe legs taking up all the space.” He says instead.

“Oh, so the two of you have a manlet club now?”

“What the fuck is a manlet?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older, kiddo.” Richie says, ruffling his hair and Eddie bats him off thinking, _please don’t stop touching me._

“Fuck you dude.” He snaps and then Mike is clearing his throat pointedly from the entrance to the bar. The others are watching them, Beverly trying to hide a smile and Eddie flushes and pulls away.

Inside, the bar is pretty noisy for a Wednesday night in Derry, and the clientele seem just drunk enough not to notice just how dirty they are or the stink of smoke they trail behind them. They cram themselves into a booth at the back under a string of chilli lights. It’s not really big enough for the six of them and Ben is practically sitting in Beverly’s lap but he’s not complaining.

Richie, who’s had his eye on the bar since they had come in, offers to get the first round.

“Gin and tonic. Diet. “ Eddie says when Richie points at him, operating on habit, and then reconsiders. “Actually uh, do you think they do Pina Coladas?”

“Do you want me to get beaten up?” Richie grouches but he brings one over anyway, making a weird face when Eddie immediately starts eating the pineapple slice.

“Is this still your food thing?”

“Sort of. Yeah.” Eddie says, slurping on the straw noisily and letting the rum and coconut coat his tongue. He is hungry, it’s true but he’s been having gin and tonics for nearly ten years now, at Myra’s insistence that it was sensible, masculine kind of drink and good for his heart. He hasn’t had one of these since a college party in 1998 where he had ended up making out with some guy from his Statistics class in a dark kitchen. He had spent about a year after that repressing the memory and the thought of it had up until recently made him almost physically sick; now for some reason he’s craving the taste of pineapple. Maybe it was the near-death experience.

Kyle, that was his name. Eddie remembered he had always found him kind of funny.

“Food thing?” Beverly asks around her beer.

“Ever since Eddie uh, _came back_, he’s been a hungry, hungry caterpillar. I had to keep throwing snacks at him just so he wouldn’t eat any of Mike’s ugly furniture.”

Eddie makes a face and loudly sucks on his drink straw as obnoxiously as possible and almost, for a moment, thinks he catches Richie watching his mouth.

“N-not that this isn’t interesting.” Bill cuts in. “But sh- should we talk about how IT is back now? And _j-just tried to kill us_?”

“He was trying to kill us, wasn’t he?” Beverly muses, tracing her fingertips on the sticky tabletop and looking thoughtful. “Doesn’t that strike you as odd? He’s never been that straightforward…that _aggressive. _He always works in the shadows, divides and conquers. Before, the fortune cookies, the things we saw when we split up, it was like he was trying to scare us away. He even used Bowers to do his dirty work. This feels different._”_

“We killed him once. Twice, almost. Maybe he’s scared now.” Ben suggests, almost hopeful.

Eddie swallows and pushes his drink away. “He’s not trying to kill all of us.”

The others look at him and Eddie feels suddenly very sick.

“There’s been three times now where he could have killed me. When he burnt down the library, he shut me out. And then, the car…”

Eddie trails off, remembering suddenly, the door slamming shut with Richie on the other side, the smell of smoke. When he had climbed into the car, panicking, his mother had been in the passengers seat, dead and stinking of the cemetery dirt saying,_ Eddie-bear they’ll get you killed, they aren’t nice boys and girls, I don’t want you playing with them anymore, please Eddie…_

“The flames didn’t touch you.” Beverly says quietly and besides her Ben nods, frowning.

Eddie tells them about the drugstore, the way that Pennywise had shrunk back, the way he’d said, _I’m hungry Eddie, I’m a growing boy…. _Richie is uncharacteristically silent beside him and Eddie keeps glancing over at him, but his face is unreadable.

“But what does it mean?” Ben asks when he’s finished. “It would make more sense if IT was trying not to kill Richie, if the deal was with him. Why would he be protecting you?”

“M-maybe the deal was never ab- about Richie.” Bill suggests and Eddie can almost see the wheels turning in his horror-writer mind. “Maybe h-he needed Eddie to live too.”

“So, what, they’re connected somehow?” Richie says, sounding so repulsed that Eddie has to look away, focus on a watermark on the table instead. “No offense Bill but this is sounding a lot like your last theory. I’ve been with him for days now-Eddie’s not a fucking clown puppet, okay?”

Bill bristles and Eddie can almost see the fight brewing between them when Beverly cuts in.

“No one ever dies in Derry.” Beverly says softly, staring at her hands. She starts when they fall silent, as if she’s resurfacing from a dream.

“I think we all know that isn’t the fucking case, Bev.” Richie says but it’s not harsh.

“No, no, I was trying to remember something the woman who lived in my old apartment said to me. She said that no one ever dies in Derry. And that…” Here she pauses, a note of horror creeping into her voice. “Her father was in the circus.”

“Wasn’t that just another trick Beverly? You said when you left it was just a ruin.” Ben asks, not dismissively. Eddie gets the sense that they’ve talked about this before.

“I thought that too. I thought it was just a way of scaring me. But then when I heard what you all saw, your encounters were so much more personal, Georgie and your parents Mike, and Richie’s-“

“_Paul_ _Bunyan statue_.” Richie says loudly, cutting her off. “My lumberjack thing.”

She looks at him a moment and then nods. “Yeah. And they were all about you, handcrafted to prey on our personal fears. So why did I get a story about Pennywise’s daughter? Why make that up? It never made sense.”

Mike frowns. “Well we know that the clown is just one form of IT. There was the leper, Stan’s painting…”

“The werewolf.” Eddie says quietly.

“Buh-But didn’t we think that P-Pennywise was just another monster? I m-mean Richie, you w-were always scared of clowns right?”

“Uh, yeah.” Richie says, without much conviction and then takes a large gulp of his whiskey. “But who isn’t?”

“I always thought his true shape was the deadlights. But if Pennywise was a real person once, if he needs a physical form then maybe…” Mike says and then all their eyes are trailing over to Eddie.

“Next round is on me.” Eddie says, standing up. “Same again? Okay good.”

He brushes Richie off when he tries to go with him, needing a moment just to breathe, just to _think_. He can feel that familiar itchy feeling under his skin, like something is horribly wrong with his body but this time it’s not cancer or a brain clot but something far worse, something that the sharpest scalpel in the world couldn’t cut out of him.

“Uh, the same again for the corner booth please.” He tells the bartender and there’s no way the guy can remember what they all had but he just smiles and nods, turning away to make the drinks.

The thing is that Eddie has always suspected that underneath all his check ups and medications and antiseptic wipes there was something deeply wrong with him, a sickness lying undiagnosed in the very foundations of who he was. No matter how many surfaces he wiped down it was already useless because at the heart of it Eddie was just as diseased and rotting as the leper who had stuck his tongue down Eddie’s throat. Sometimes, though he didn’t like to think about it much, he thought that the reason he didn’t want to touch other people wasn’t because he was scared of what they might give him but scared of what _he might do to them_. It was this thought that held him back late at night when he imagined touching someone the way he wanted to, of kissing them and being kissed…

And now it was true, he was infected after all and all he could think of was seeing his pupils drifting slowly apart in the mirror.

“That’ll be forty dollars and sixty cents please.”

Eddie blinks. The barman is smiling politely at him. Eddie fumbles for his wallet and then remembers that he’s wearing Richie’s jacket, that he hasn’t even seen his wallet since they went down into Neibolt, that it’s probably floating down a sewer somewhere.

“Oh, I um, sorry I think I’ve misplaced it.” He says, cringing. “Let me just ask my friends- “

  
“No need Eddie.” The barman smiles. “Your credit is always good here.”

Eddie frowns, flustered, and wonders when the barman heard his name but before he can protest, he’s being handed the heavy tray of precariously balanced drinks.

  
“Um, thank you.” He says instead and as the barman turns away for a moment Eddie thinks he recognises something about his curly hair and almost delicate face but then Richie is calling him over and Eddie looks away.

“So, what’s the consensus?” He asks as he drops the tray onto the table, maybe a little more harshly than he needs to. “Am I the new Pennywise?”

They look a little guilty and Mike winces. “I mean it’s just a theory but if Pennywise really does need a physical form to survive…”

“No offense but I think that Eddie would be a pretty shitty replacement. “Richie says, laughing in a strangled kind of way. “Scary clowns I understand but who’s going to be spooked by an immortal risk analyst?”

“I don’t think he always does. Need a host I mean.” Beverly says, brow furrowed. “Even if Pennywise was real once, he’s just a costume now, a favourite outfit he hasn’t thrown out. I still think he lives on fear and belief but when we came so close to killing that part of him, maybe he needed something more substantial to hold onto, like a, I don’t know, a life raft.”

“Well I did not give him permission to fucking climb aboard.” Eddie snaps and next to him Richie nearly snorts his whiskey out of his nose.

“S- so why let Richie take him away?” Bill asks.

Ben looks suddenly very sad and old, despite the supermodel looks. “Maybe he knew Richie would protect him.”

Richie opens and closes his mouth, as if trying to think of a joke to make but coming up short.

“Gross Mike, I know this isn’t on topic but a Bloody Mary?” He says instead, in the worst attempt at a conversation change that Eddie has ever seen in his life. “Is everyone having cocktails? You know this is a dive bar, right?”

Mike frowns. “What are you talking about Rich? This is just water.”

Even as he says it, Ben suddenly spits out his beer onto the table and it splatters, red and _too thick _and then Eddie is retching up blood that still smells like coconut and rum.

“We n-need to go!” Bill says, looking up at a bar that is suddenly empty, and Richie is pulling up Eddie by the jacket and staring at him saying, _fuck, fuck fuck_

“That’s last call, folks!” The bartender is saying as they’re stumbling out of the bar, ringing his bell and Eddie suddenly sees the deep cuts in his wrists, the blood trickling into his sleeves.

Outside Ben throws up against the wall while Beverly rubs his back.

“Th- th-that was st-Stan.” Bill is stuttering, hands in his hair, staring back at the doorway. “I swear it was him. _I swear_.”

Richie passes Eddie a napkin and Eddie wonders how he had the presence of mind to take it. 

“You have blood. On your mouth.” Richie says and he looks upsettingly like he’s on the edge of tears.

“Ugh, gross, gross, _gross_.” Eddie moans, wiping his mouth and then for good measure, his tongue, shuddering, still feeling the blood trickling down his throat, hot and warm. “When we get out of here, I’m taking a fucking bath in antiseptic, I’m taking every shot I can get, I hate this place _so much_.”

“Yeah.” Richie says, looking weirdly comforted. “I can tell you one thing, this bar is _not _gonna like my Yelp review.”

“We need to end this.” Mike says and he sounds angry now, in a way that’s sort of scary even to Eddie. “Tonight. It needs to end.”

* * *

They need more information, so they drive to Beverly’s old apartment by the canal. The rain is still coming down hard, it must be about 4AM now and Eddie is cold and covered in soot and he has fucking blood in his mouth, but Mike was right, this needs this to be over. Eddie needs this to be over. 

Before they go in the six of them stand for a moment, looking up at it. It’s a wreck, an abandoned shell of apartments just like Beverly described but Eddie remembers coming here as a kid, mopping up the dripping red mess of her bathroom.

“You know I’ve never actually been in here.” Richie notes, as if reading Eddie’s mind. “You assholes made me stay outside last time.”

“Actually m-maybe someone sh-should stay outside.” Bill suggests. “A- as a lookout.”

“_No.”_ Ben and Richie snap at nearly the same time.

“No more splitting up.” Beverly agrees, looking at Eddie. “We’re not leaving anyone behind this time.”

Inside the property is dark and dusty but there’s still a staircase, even if it only goes up to Beverly’s floor and no further and Beverly guides them by memory to her old door, Ben close behind her. Richie and Eddie are behind with Mike and Bill taking up their rear, watching their backs like the good leader he always was. Eddie suspects he’s being kept in the middle intentionally, as if the others are taking extra care over him. It should bother him, in the same way that it did when his mom and Myra fussed over him, but this feels different somehow.

“This makes me miss your dumb head-torch.” Richie says, cursing when he nearly falls through a rotten hole in the floor.

“Head torches aren’t dumb, asshole. They keep your hands free.” Eddie says primly. “Maybe if you watch where you’re going-“

“Hey, I’m falling in these holes so you don’t have to!” Richie snaps back and then Beverly shushes them.

“This is it. This is my door.” She says and her shoulders are trembling just a little bit, staring at it.

Ben looks down and then takes her hand.

“Remember what we talked about.” He whispers to her. “Whatever’s in there. I’m not going anywhere.”

Beverly lets out a shaky breath and Eddie feels like he should look away. He’s suddenly overcome by a feeling of _want_, so deep it makes him almost breathless.

They have to break down the door in the end, but nothing comes rushing out of the dark at them except a smell so horrible that Eddie isn’t the only one gagging.

“What the fuck is that?” He says, hands clamped over his mouth, eyes watering. The smell is rank and thick with a horrible sweetness underlying it, like rotten fruit.

They find the source of it in the bedroom, where the body of Mrs Kersh is decomposing into a mouldy mattress. There are still photos on the wall and a small moth-eaten teddy bear lies on the floor, surrounded by what look suspiciously like cat bones.

“So, she was real after all.” Beverly says in a hushed tone. “I wonder how long she’s been dead?”

“Not just her.” Mike says and he’s looking at a photo on the wall. He takes it down carefully and passes it around. The man in the photo is wearing a suit, tucking his hand into his lapel, no greasepaint or costume to be seen. There’s something off about the smile though, the smug dark holes for eyes and Eddie shivers in recognition, passing it on quickly to Bill.

“So there r-really was a person behind the c-clown. I guess he d-does need a ph-physical form after all.”

“So he survived through Eddie?” Ben asks and then glances over at him, softening his tone. “But…Eddie was dead. We all knew that.”

Richie opens his mouth to argue but Eddie interrupts him before he gets going.

“Maybe I survived through him. Maybe it goes both ways. I’m hungry, IT’s hungry. I cut myself and IT hurts.”

_He dies, I die,_ Eddie thinks but doesn’t say. Richie is scowling like the same thought is occurring to him.

“I think we’re all making a lot of guesses here.” Richie snaps. “I think we should remember this is Eddie’s life, not _Blues_ fucking _Clues._ We know we can’t trust anything we see, so why are we believing this? If IT had a physical form it wouldn’t be a person, it would be, I don’t know a dragon or slug or a- “

“A spider.” Eddie whispers. “I dreamt of a spider.”

Richie looks at him as if he’s going to start shouting and then all at once the fight goes out of him and takes off his glasses, rubbing a hand over his face.

“Fuck. _Fuck_. “He says and then shudders. “I saw a spider too.”

“In the deadlights?” Beverly asks, like she already knows the answer. 

“Yeah.” Richie says, leaning back against the wall heavily. “In the fucking deadlights. I saw…I saw a spider come out of IT’s mouth. And Eddie…Eddie was dead, Eddie was dead with his mouth open and all this blood coming out and the spider…the spider fucking _crawled-“_

“_Stop._ Stop it Richie, this isn’t funny.” Eddie says, hearing the panic in his own voice; because he can see it, can see the thing creeping from IT’s big gaping red mouth over the rock and dirt, over to his body, the feel of it on his lips, forcing it’s way down past Eddie’s tongue, down his fucking throat.

“I’m sorry Eds, I’m so sorry, but this isn’t a bit.” Richie is saying and they’re looking at each other as if somehow, they’ll see the answer to all of this in each other’s faces.

“When I came out of the deadlight, you were there, on top of me and then you, and then, the _blood…” _Richie says, like the words are pouring out of him, like he can’t stop them.

“_Guys._ We have a problem!” Ben shouts from the window and Eddie tears himself away from staring at Richie to see the Ben gripping the windowsill and staring, horrified, out through the glass. “The water-the canal, it’s rising!”

“Th-that’s impossible.” Bill says, pushing his way past Ben to the window and then curses loudly.

Still shaking, Eddie walks over to the window and pulls back a decaying lace curtain. Outside the canal is almost invisible, the streets filling with water, the dark reflecting the streetlamps like an endless liquid sky. Bobbing in the water are red balloons, hundreds of them.

“The staircase.” Beverly says, her face white and bleached in the light from the window. “It’s the only way out.”

Mike dashes for the door but comes back only a few moments later, staring at them with wide, frightened eyes. “It’s flooded already. We’re trapped.”

“IT wants to drown us in here. L-like rats.” Bill spits and while Richie starts freaking out loudly a thought suddenly presents itself to Eddie, a solution so simple it feels like cheating.

He looks out the window and sees the waters rising, covering the buildings like thick dark treacle. Soon the whole of Derry will be IT’s world; cold and dark and silent.

“It’s not real though, it doesn’t make any sense.” Richie is saying. “There’s not enough water…”

“None of it is real but that won’t stop it from killing us.” Ben says. “We need to think, the structure of the building… there’s a fire escape isn’t there Beverly? If we get to the roof-“

Eddie walks out into the hallway. He remembers where the bathroom is, even after all these years. He looks at the bathtub. It might work. If the water is still running.

“Eddie?” He hears Richie call. “Now is not the time to wander off!”

“Four to six minutes.” Eddie mutters, turning the tap. A stream of water trickles out and then with the gurgle of pipes, the stream picks up, gushing into the tub. It’s brown and rusty but when Eddie touches it, ice cold.

“Four to six minutes? What are you talking about?” Richie says as he appears in the doorway. “Are you having a breakdown?”

“No.” Eddie says and he means it, this is the calmest he’s felt in a long time, maybe ever. He’s thinking of Mrs Kersh, dead now but kept alive for so long, kept _close_. Whatever had become of the man who had become Pennywise, he had still held onto his daughter, even if it was monstrous and fucked up and _evil_.

Ben had been right, it didn’t make sense that Pennywise would let him go, not when he could wrap him up, keep him cocooned and safe like Eddie’s mom had wanted, like Myra had wanted. Unless….

Unless Eddie had wanted to be free. Unless Eddie had wanted to be with Richie.

_Maybe it really did work both ways._

Which meant there was a chance that this would work.

“Four to six minutes till permanent damage.” Eddie says. “That’s how long the brain can keep going after the heart stops beating. If CPR is performed quickly enough then the chances of recovery are pretty high.”

Richie looks at him, looks at the bathtub and then his face slackens as he understands what Eddie’s trying to say.

“_No,”_ He says, the word almost torn out of him. “No, no way, not happening. Not a fucking chance. If you think I’m going to let-“

“Looks like I’m drowning either way.” Eddie says, trying to keep his breathing calm. “At least this way it’s my choice.”

“Eddie, no, it’s too dangerous, we’ll find another way, we beat him before…”

“You told me I was brave.” Eddie nearly shouts before taking a deep breath and stepping over, putting his hands on Richie’s shaking chest. “You said I was brave so let me be brave. Let me do this for you. For everyone.”

Richie’s face contorts in anger and then he’s holding onto Eddie’s hands where Eddie is touching him, gripping too tightly.

“I told you that and then you died, Eddie _you died_, and _I only just got you back_. It’s not happening again, it’s not fair, I don’t give a shit if you’re a coward, I just want you to be not dead.”

Eddie lets out a ragged breath and then they’re staring at each other, somewhere in between a fight and an embrace. Richie’s hands are so warm, and his face is so close, he’s almost close enough to-

“The fire escape is blocked but Bill thinks we can make it up the interior stairway-” Mike says, panting in the doorway and then he looks at the two of them and freezes. “Um. Should I come back?”

“Do you know CPR?” Eddie asks him.

“Uh, no but I think Ben does….” Mike says slowly.

“Get him in here.” Eddie says.

“Yeah we need someone with some sense.” Richie snaps. “Because Eddie is being a stubborn_ idiot_.”

Mike doesn’t have to call for Ben; he’s already appeared in the doorway, Bill and Beverly at his side.

“Wh-what’s happening?” Bill asks and Eddie reluctantly lets go of Richie.

“I told you I had a theory. Look, Pennywise or IT or whatever, he needs me alive right? He hurts when I hurt, he hasn’t touched me.” Eddie says and then again, because he needs them to understand but he can’t say it out loud in case he chickens out, “_He needs me alive.”_

Beverly is the first to get it and her eyes widen, her hand going to her mouth. “Oh Eddie, _no_.”

“It just needs to be for a moment. Six minutes maximum actually. Anymore than that and I might not come back.” Eddie says in a rush, talking loudly over Richie’s protests. “We set a timer; Ben gives me CPR. Simple.”

“Simple!” Richie explodes. “What about the part where we have to drown you? This is insane Eddie there’s _no way_ this will work.”

“It could w-work.” Bill says grimly and Richie wheels, looking like he’s about to punch him.

“Why _the fuck_ are you encouraging this, Bill? Why are any of you taking this seriously? Could someone explain that to me?”

“Richie, Richie he’s right.” Mike says. “I hate it, but this could be our only option. If Eddie and Pennywise are connected somehow then there’s no other way.”

“Whatever we do, we have to make it fast.” Ben says, glancing at the window.

They all look at Eddie and wait. Eddie knows that if he said he didn’t want to they would find another way; they wouldn’t even question it, they would never bring it up again. They wouldn’t ask this of him. But Eddie wouldn’t do this for anybody else but them.

Richie looks wild eyed, glancing back between Eddie and the others incredulously so Eddie takes a deep breath and turns to him.

“You brought me back Rich, but it’s my life, not yours. Not IT’s either.” He looks up and wishes he were taller so he could say this to Richie’s face. “This isn’t me being self-sacrificing here okay? Because I’m coming back. I promise.”

Richie looks at him for a long time but then just nods tightly. “Okay. But I’m holding you to that. If you die again, I’m gonna kill you.”

Eddie grins at him weakly.

As if Pennywise can sense the moment the tide changes there’s a sudden shrill giggle from the living room and the six of them freeze, staring at the dark hallway.

**_are you hiding from me boys and girls_**, the voice calls, floating down the hallway**_, it’s not nice to keep running away. i might start to think you’re avoiding me_**

“W-we’ll hold IT off, Eddie.” Bill says eyes narrowed and then he looks back, eyes damp. “S-see you soon okay?”

“Yeah Bill. I’ll see you soon.” Eddie says and then Beverly and Mike are hugging him, letting go only when footsteps get closer and closer in the hallway.

“I love you Eddie.” Beverly says and kisses him on the cheek before getting out her gun.

“Please don’t die, I can’t deal with Richie if you do.” Mike says before he turns to go and he doesn’t even sound like he’s joking.

Eddie turns away from the door and the bathtub is halfway full now, the water lapping at the filthy porcelain. He starts to unbutton the jacket with clumsy fingers before Richie reaches out and stops him.

“Woah, woah, Eddie I’m barely keeping it together here man but if you do this in the nude, I really am gonna freak out.”

“It’s a nice jacket.” Eddie says stubbornly. “I don’t want it to get wet. Do you know what water damage does to leather?”

Richie laughs somewhat hysterically. “You think I care about water damage? Keep it, _please_.”

“No.” Eddie insists, shrugging it off roughly and shoving it at Richie. “I like this jacket. I might want to wear it again someday ok?”

Richie swallows and then nods, watching as Eddie steps gingerly into the bathwater, hissing. It’s freezing, so cold he can already feel his extremities going numb, but that’s okay, that might help actually.

“Are you sure about this Eddie?” Ben asks him when he’s up to his chest and shaking. “It’s been a long time since I did my training for this.”

There’s a loud crash from the hallway, like a door is being ripped off its frame and the sound of Mike swearing loudly. Then IT is calling out with an edge of desperation, **_eddieeeee, what are you doing eddie-bear? don’t you know it’s dangerous to play in old buildings?_**

“It’s okay, you’ll do great.” Eddie says, teeth chattering, trying not to listen. “Just remember, when IT dies, don’t pull me out just yet, give it a minute. Just to make sure. You have a timer?”

Ben nods, showing Eddie his phone screen.

“Okay, cool.” Eddie says then hesitates. “I’ll probably try and fight you. Don’t let me.”

“_Jesus_.” He hears Richie say, sounding like he’s going to be sick.

The water is high enough now and Eddie looks down at his legs, distant and disconnected through the cold water. He feels dragged down already by his clothes and the thought of being trapped under, struggling for breath is so horrible he doesn’t let himself think about it.

“Eddie, I don’t…” Richie says, crouching so he’s eye level. “I don’t want you to do this.”

“I’ll be fine.” Eddie tries to reassure him, thinking,_ coma, seizures, hypoxic brain injury_. “Just in case I’m not though I, um.”

Richie opens his mouth, already looking panicked but Eddie has to get this out, he would never forgive himself if he didn’t. For a moment he regrets that Ben is there, watching this but then it feels kind of okay, almost right that he could be brave enough to say this in front of other people.

And Ben loves him; Ben will understand.

“I have to say something.”

“Are you going to tell me you fucked my mom again? Because I gotta tell you I don’t know how much juice that joke has left in it.”

“No. Shut up for a second.” Eddie says. “Not many people get a second chance at last words, so I want to make this one count. “

He takes a moment to calm himself, even with the sound of Pennywise shrieking behind the door.

“I’m gay.” He says. “I’m gay and also I’m in love with you. I think I have been for just about my whole life. And I’m sorry, I know this is very cheesy to do this now and I know you don’t feel the same way, but I want to tell you because I don’t want to die without you knowing. Not again. So yeah, I’m in love with you. And also, I’m getting a divorce, not that I’m saying that to influence you- “

He stops talking because Richie has been staring at him throughout his whole impromptu speech, his mouth dropping open at one point, but now he looks like he’s recovered from the shock and just looks_ angry_.

Eddie isn’t afraid of Richie hitting him or anything like that, so he doesn’t flinch when Richie grabs his shirt and pulls him so he’s nearly hanging out of the bath, but he does hold his breath.

“I hate you so fucking much.” Richie chokes out and then, inexplicably, leans in to kiss him.

It’s an awful kiss, at a bad angle and all teeth and what might be tears but it’s the best five seconds of Eddie’s life, hands down. He feels unreal from it, like it’s both not him and also the best version of himself who’s kissing Richie, who’s _being _kissed by Richie.

When Richie draws away he leaves his hands on Eddie’s neck, Eddie’s cheek, saying, “You _massive dick,_ why would you wait till now, why would you tell me when I’m about to drown you, you have the worst sense of timing in the world, I swear to God.”

“Does this mean you like me back?” Eddie says, grinning like a dope despite everything.

Richie groans and kisses him again, so hard that Eddie thinks he might already have died, and this is his own private afterlife, sitting in a cold tub of water and being kissed by Richie Tozier.

There’s a shout from outside and a horrible screech of metal and then the sound of the gun being fired, three times. Ben, who has been up until this point, been the nicest fucking wingman in the world, looks like he wants to jump up and help, only barely holding himself back.

“I’m so sorry.” He says, turning back to them. “Don’t get me wrong I’ve been waiting for this as much as anyone, but we need to do this now, we don’t have much time. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m ready.” Eddie says, nodding even as Richie grips him tighter. “Let’s do it.”

It’s not even a lie; right now, he feels as if he could do anything. He could take IT on empty handed if he needed to.

“You know this means you have to come back.” Richie tells him. “I mean it Eds.”

“You know I actually always liked it when you called me that.” Eddie says, gripping his hand tightly, teeth still chattering. “I always wanted to tell you.”

“I love you.” Richie tells him and he really is crying now. 

Eddie looks at him and he has so much more to say, years and years of it, but he doesn’t have time, none of them do so he just nods and lets himself sink back into the cold.

“Hold that thought okay?” He asks, just before the water closes over his head.

* * *

Beverly fires the gun once then twice more, feeling the kick-back rock her wrist. The sound is very loud in the hallway, but she can’t afford to wince or even look away, not with IT scuttling down towards her. His Pennywise mask is leering and below it is a writhing mess of skinny spider legs, too many to count but inhumanly fast.

Her first shot catches him in the mouth but the second two go wide and then he’s already too close.

“Bev, g-get back!” She hears Bill yell but she’s struggling to reload and suddenly IT is in front of her, over her, whispering to her in her father’s voice, **_are you still my little girl bevvie? are you still my good little girl?_**

She’s paralyzed, can’t breathe with his hot stink on her face but then Bill smashes a piece of wood into IT’s back and the momentary distraction is enough for her to scramble backwards.

**_that’s not very nice, buh-buh-buh big bill, _**IT screams**_, _**rounding on him but Mike is there with a length of pipe, and smashes IT between the eyes.

The space is too narrow, a nightmarish coffin of peeling floral wallpaper but the space is working as much to IT’s disadvantage as to theirs. IT can’t get any bigger and there aren’t any shadows for him to retreat into. As long as they can stop it from reaching the bathroom then they have a shot.

Mike and Bill stand side by side as IT rallies itself for the second charge and Beverly takes a moment to look over her shoulder.

Inside, Ben and Richie are crouched over the bathtub, struggling and Richie’s shoulders are shaking, he’s begging out loud-

Beverly can’t look, it hurts too much, so she takes a breath and reloads her gun, trying not to hear Richie saying, _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…._

Mike gets slammed against a wall and crumples like a rag doll and now Bill is alone against IT; staring up the rows of teeth as if hypnotized.

**_you want georgie back?_** IT asks him**_, i made a deal with richie, I can make a deal with you too. how about stan? audra? how about that for a happy ending bill? i can make them all come back to you, everyone who left…._**

For a horrible moment Beverly thinks that Bill is hesitating but then he snarls and kick outs.

“They d-didn’t leave me, you t-took them, you bastard!” And then Bill is muttering under his breath as he smashes down the wood again and again, _He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghost, He thrusts his fists-_

Beverly is helping Mike up but it’s not enough, Bill’s blows are landing harmlessly against Pennywise’s face and then with a giggle, Bill is being thrown against the wall, his head smacking with an audible crack! against the wallpaper. For a moment it looks like it’s all over; Pennywise is pulling back his head for the killing bite and then Beverly recognises the exact moment that Eddie that starts to drown.

IT stops dead and begins to writhe, the legs thrashing madly beneath him.

**_you’re killing him!_** **_you said no tricks richie! liar! murderer!_**

Beverly hears Richie sobbing behind her and feels white hot rage behind her eyes because this is all so fucked up and it’s not fair that this should be happening, it’s not fair that the love of her life is drowning one of her best friends in dirty bathwater while she fights a fucking childhood bad dream, none of this is fair and it’s all because of IT.

“Shut up,” she tells him and shoots him point blank. “Shut up, shut up, _shut up_.”

**_bevvie, please. don’t let them do this. _**Pennywise begs and then, because he can’t seem to stop his own cruelty, not even now, he says, **_isn’t your new boyfriend strong bevvie? ever scared he’ll hit you too?_**

Beverly thinks about crying, helpless while Pennywise carved out letters on Ben’s skin and the hatred steadies her aim.

“Not for a second you son of a bitch.” She says and puts the first bullet between his eyes and then keeps pulling the trigger after that until it’s going _click, click, click _in her hands and Mike is pushing the gun down.

“It’s over Bev.” He’s saying but it isn’t, not quite yet and Eddie must have a few bubbles of air left in his lungs because IT is rasping out, breathless, **_richie did this, it was over and he did this, he undid everything mikey, all your hard work. he killed them mikey and doesn’t that make you angry? don’t let him kill anyone else, please._**

“You’re the only killer here.” Mike says, pulling Bill up and the three of them stand side to side, between the bathroom and the hall and finally, after a lifetime of pain, they watch IT die writhing.

He doesn’t leave a body this time, but Beverly can feel it, the moment that his influence evaporates. The hallway doesn’t look any different but it’s just a hallway now.

But she doesn’t have time to think about it, she’s already in the bathroom stammering, “IT’s dead, IT’s dead, pull him out, quickly!”

Ben looks at her, frantic. “Eddie said to wait, to make sure.”

“Ben.” Beverly says, and there will be time to say this later, say it over and over but not right now. “IT’s not coming back this time. Trust me.”

He looks at her face and nods and then Beverly catches a glimpse of Eddie, still and white and small at the bottom of the bathtub before she’s helping them haul him out into the cold wet tiles.

This is the second time she’s seen Eddie dead and somehow this is worse because there’s no blood or gaping wound; he’s just cold, like he’s already a corpse.

They cluster around him, the five of him, manhandling him into the recovery position and Richie is hunched on his knees over him like he’s praying, whispering things into Eddie’s ear that Beverly can only catch snatches of, words like _please _and _promise_.

“Three and a half minutes.” Mike says tightly, watching Ben’s phone.

Ben is breathing into Eddie’s mouth and Beverly reaches out to hold Richie’s hand.

“Three minutes.” Mike says a little later and Ben is still pushing down on Eddie’s chest, _going one, two, three, one, two, three._ Richie is clutching her so tightly it hurts, and Bill is like a statue in the corner, unbreathing, watching over them all.

“One minute, fifteen seconds.” Mike says and Beverly looks up and sees that the dawn is breaking outside the window.

* * *

It’s the smell of antiseptic that wakes Eddie up rather than the beeping. He doesn’t open his eyes yet, just in case this is a trick, and this is some hallucination caused by drowning or worse, Heaven. Eddie has always pictured Heaven being like this, clean sheets and white light and the smell of antiseptic. It hadn’t made him particularly excited for the afterlife. When he opens his eyes, he sees Richie, and okay maybe death isn’t that bad after all.

Richie has somehow curled his long body sideways into a plastic chair and he’s scowling and making little stabs at his phone. Eddie can see the dark circles under his eyes even with the frames of his glasses in the way and he’s unshaven, with what looks like unwashed hair.

It occurs to Eddie that Richie might be the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.

“Hey Trashmouth.” he says quietly, wincing at how torn up his throat sounds. “Looks like I’m not dead. Do you still want to kill me?”

Richie nearly falls out of his chair and then he’s scrambling onto Eddie’s bed, onto Eddie, with no regard for Eddie’s (probably) delicate condition saying, “I don’t want to kill you, dumbass, I want to fucking _marry _you.”

Then they’re kissing, Richie’s hands in his hair, his chest, barely avoiding knocking out the wires in Eddie’s arm and Eddie is thinking that he’s been married for over a decade but he doesn’t really know what it’s like, maybe he never really knew because even the thought of being Richie’s husband is making fireworks go off inside his chest. Eddie still doesn’t know if this can technically be called good kissing because Richie seems more intent on covering as much ground as quickly as possible; Eddie’s cheeks, his ears, the tip of his nose, and it should be gross but all Eddie can do is grin up at him and think _I love you, I love you, I’m so glad I’m alive._

“I’m hoping this means Eddie’s awake now.” Mike says from the door, the others behind him and Eddie grins over at them, too elated to feel any shame. Richie doesn’t get off either, just sits back on his haunches so Eddie can breathe, and so they can pile in to hug him.

“How long was I out?” Eddie says when he’s sitting up on some pillows, and the others are sitting around him on plastic chairs, drinking shitty hospital coffee.

“Eh, like a day or so. Not that bad.” Richie says nonchalantly. He still hasn’t given up his spot on the bed, just wiggled round so he’s sitting next to Eddie with an arm slung around his neck. The attending nurse keeps coming in to make tutting noises but it’s a private room and it’s not like Eddie cares. His ribs feel sore and it’s hard to take a full breath but other than that he feels amazing, better than has in his whole life maybe.

“Richie’s been here the whole time.” Beverly tells him. “And he hasn’t slept either so pretty soon we expect they’ll be setting him up in the next bed from you.”

“We can be roommates!” Richie says and now Eddie’s looking for it he can see the exhaustion shining through from under the manic energy.

“So IT’s dead now.” Eddie says and it’s not a question. He can feel it, the absence, like a chronic ache that one day just goes away, when you’ve had it so long you didn’t even know you were in pain.

“IT’s dead. You killed it, Eddie.” Ben says with that shy smile he never really lost.

“And I’m guessing my plan was a success.” Eddie says, gesturing to his very alive, not dead body.

Richie scowls into his shoulder. “I still hate your plan, for the record.”

“Y-you took a while t-to come back Eddie.” Bill says quietly. “It was scary.”

Beverly nods. “You threw up a ton of water.”

“And a lot of spiders.” Mike mutters and immediately both Beverly and Bill are trying to shush him.

_“I thought we agreed not to tell him about the spiders._” Richie hisses from next to Eddie’s ear.

Eddie swallows hard and decides not to think about it. Maybe one day he will and then go stand on a hill and scream for a bit. Right now, he’s too high on painkillers and the feel of Richie’s arm around his neck.

Later when they all step out, ostensibly for various tasks but probably because Richie has been getting less subtle in his handsiness, they curl up together, face to face. They’re really too big for this bed, neither of them are the same size as they were when they used to share the hammock but Eddie could care less.

“You’ll be out of here in a day or two.” Richie tells him, rubbing his hand over the curve of Eddie’s blanketed hip. “Wanna go hang out in the Townhouse? See all the old sights? No clowns included, I promise.”

Eddie wrinkles up his nose. “You know what, I think I’ll pass. This place is kind of boring without the clowns anyway.”

“So where do you wanna go? New York? You could, I mean. L.A is nice. Well. It’s sunny.” Richie says, looking weirdly nervous, as if Eddie hadn’t died for him, as if Richie literally pulled his soul out of the afterlife.

“I like L.A.” Eddie says, “But what about we take the long way there? Like via Canada or Europe or something. Maybe it’s dying twice but I realized there’s a lot I haven’t seen.”

_Or done,_ he thinks, _and none of it was with you._

“I’ll take you to Canada.” Richie says, grinning down at him. “I’ll take you to France if you want or China or Disneyland, I’m game. I’ll take you to the fucking moon baby, if that’s where you wanna go.”

Eddie kisses him and thinks, _I can have this, I can actually have it._

When he pulls back, he’s a little choked up.

“Okay. The moon then. I hear it’s nice this time of year.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so originally I was gonna finish with Bev's perspective and the timer running out on brain death but I thought that might be too fucked up. I am gonna write one more epilogue but this is really the end of it. I've literally never written (or finished rather) something this ambitious so idk, I hope it turned out well. It's like 3am here so I don't really have enough distance on it. 
> 
> This should be obvs but pls do not try this CPR bullshit at home i know NOTHING beyond two stub articles. I thought of this ending quite early on but then kept reconsidering because even I thought the idea of Richie having to physically drown him was kind of messed up. I was worried about this chapter for this reason but also because it's quite talky? and also i wasn't sure if my explanation of Pennywise makes sense outside of my head. 
> 
> Anyway this has been such an amazing experience in terms of writing and reception and I want to say thank you so much to everyone who's read it. And the comments have been so nice! I really did nearly cry at some of them. Tell me what you think below!


	5. Epilogue

The sun is shining on the morning that Eddie gets out of hospital, the sky a big wash of blue but it's not very warm. The summer is almost over now and yesterday Richie had seen the first leaves start to fall from outside Eddie’s window. He wouldn’t pick up on shit like that normally; the weather and trees and birds or whatever but for some reason he’s been noticing it more these days, as if his lens prescription had suddenly been readjusted. Sometimes Richie even catches himself whistling while he walks over to the ward in the mornings. It would be disconcerting, but he can’t really bring himself to care that much.

For a start he’s been too busy. They had needed a car after Eddie had wrecked his last one, and as all their old stuff was now charred wreckage still smoldering in the ruins of the library, there was lot to buy. Eddie had been giving him endless shopping lists of products with the brand names double underlined, but Richie kept losing the pieces of paper. They had nearly gotten into a shouting match over the right brand of toothpaste yesterday, but it really just been an excuse for Richie to push him down into the sheets and get his hands inside the back of Eddie’s hospital gown. 

_I have a great sexy nurse impression,_ he had said when they had pulled apart and Eddie had been looking up at him with pink cheeks. _You wanna hear it?_

_I’ll give you two guesses, _Eddie had grouched but he had been smiling. He was really bad at hiding that nowadays.

Now everything was packed up in the back of the second-hand car with a roadmap (_you can’t always rely on phones Richie!_) and bottled water and a selection of snacks that even Richie can admit are truly lacking in nutritional value. It had been exciting for Richie to get it together, a kind of project that he could occupy himself with outside of visiting hours and he had spent a worrying amount of time fretting over what music Eddie would want to listen to, if he still liked The Weather Girls or if he only listened to something awful like Barry Manilow. Sometimes there were moments like this, where Richie was faced by how much he didn’t know about Eddie, how much of his life he had missed out on. At one point late at night he caught himself making Spotify playlists with titles like ‘_This Is My Unfortunate College Music Taste’_ and ‘_I Got Back Into The Smiths In My 30’s, I Know That’s Lame, Shut Up’_. He wished sometimes that he and Eddie could just sit down and show each other in-depth slideshows about their lives up until this moment; the states they had visited, the people they had kissed, the unfortunate fashion trends they had looked terrible in. He catches himself thinking sometimes, what did you look like in the 90’s? The 2010’s?

When it was just the two of them, he almost forgot about it, caught up in watching Eddie’s eyes when he laughed or wrestling the TV remote away when Eddie tried to watch terrible house hunting shows.

It’s not just Richie there when Eddie is discharged but the others wait outside in the car park for Richie to go in and get him out. They’ve stuck around this time so they can leave together. Maybe it’s because they think that Richie will somehow cause a massive fuck up again if left unsupervised. Or maybe they just don’t feel the need to split up so quickly. It’s not so bad now, Derry, just another small town in Maine where nothing really happens.

“Well?” Eddie says when Richie shows up and finds him wearing actual people clothes. “What do you think?”

He’s wearing an outfit that Richie had (following _very _strict guidelines) picked out for him, jeans and a soft grey sweater. He looks weirdly soft and he’s looking at up at Richie as if he’s daring him to say something, and Richie almost can’t bring himself to make fun of him.

“Cute, cute, _cute_!” He says, stepping in to squeeze his cheeks and okay, maybe Richie can make fun just a little. Eddie bats him away, growling but lets Richie kiss him anyway.

“I meant, I’m not in the stupid gown anymore, _God_, you’re annoying.” Eddie snaps and Richie makes an exaggerated sad face.

“I’m gonna miss that gown. Do you think they’d let us take one home?”

“Is this the sexy nurse thing again?” Eddie asks him suspiciously, but Richie is just joking, he doesn’t really want any reminders of Eddie lying in the hospital bed and breathing through a tube. Ben had broken a rib when he was clawing Eddie back to life, something he apologises for on maybe a daily basis. If Richie had the ability to ever be really mad at Ben, he still wouldn’t blame him for it, but he still hates to think of it, how fragile it had been, how close. 

“May I take your bags to the car, sir?” He says in his best British Butler impression, trying to distract himself.

“Is it all ready?” Eddie asks him as he limps, slightly slower than Richie, down the disinfected corridors. “We can just go?”

“Unless you want to stick around?”

“No.” Eddie shudders. “I’m done with hospitals. I’ve decided I’m never going to a hospital again. I don’t care if I need to amputate my leg, you can just look it up on WebMD and we can do it at home.”

“You say that but then you’ll get a splinter or something and make me take you to ER.” Richie says but secretly he’s also hoping the same thing. Not the amputation part but he liked the way Eddie said _home_.

Outside, Ben is leaning on his car, talking to Beverly who is looking stylish in shades where she perches on the hood. In the parking lot, Bill and Mike are messing about with the ancient wreck of Bill’s bike, taking turns to ride it up and down past the cars. Bill had his heart set on taking it back with him to Hollywood, talking about it being an anniversary present for his wife. Richie personally isn’t sure how much Audra will want a rusty old kids’ bike from the 80s but hey, at least she and Bill are talking more now.

“L-look!” Bill is shouting as they walk out into the sunshine. “No hands, Mike!”

Mike is cheering him on, and Richie puts down Eddie’s bags to clap his hands.

“Don’t encourage them.” Eddie says and then shouts over to Bill who’s wobbling badly, “You’re gonna fall off that thing if doesn’t give you tetanus first!”

When they hug goodbye this time, Richie actually means it when he says he’ll keep in touch. Beverly and Bill are already planning a reunion in the winter; talking about renting out a cabin up somewhere snowy. Richie thinks that with their luck it’ll probably be haunted or bigfoot-infested or something but that’s okay, it’s nothing they can’t handle at this point.

When he and Eddie are on the road and Eddie is happily bitching about the snack selection Richie looks over at him and says, “Can we make one last pitstop? Five minutes, tops. Or your money back.”

* * *

At the kissing bridge, Eddie spends a long time crouching down in the dust, tracing his finger over the edge of the letters. Richie can’t interpret the look on his face but he’s not even complaining about the dirt on his pants and that alone is enough to make Richie nervous.

“Kind of lame huh?” He says at last, when he can’t stand the silence.

Eddie hums in the back of his throat, furrowing his eyebrows as if he’s wrestling with something, some great epiphany.

“These aren’t that old. They look fresh.”

  
“I uh, came back here after you died.” Richie says, and it feels so long ago now. “It was a memorial or whatever. I guess.”

“I thought I was cheesy with my death bed confession.” Eddie says but his thumb is rubbing over the + in _R+E,_ over and over.

Richie thought vaguely this would be a jokey sort of moment, _hey look at this melodramatic thing I did, _but now he’s here and remembering what it had been like, to think that Eddie was dead and never coming back. He looks down at Eddie’s back and for a moment has a horrible lurching sense of fear, like if he reaches down to touch him Eddie will disappear, just another trick of the light.

Then Eddie looks back at him and smiles, the sun in his hair and Richie thinks fiercely, _this is real, this is real._

When he pulls Eddie up and kisses him, arms tight around his waist he believes it.

“You know,” Eddie says when he pulls back. “I once wrote this note. In the back of my schoolbook. It said…Oh god why am I telling you this…It said _Mr Eddie Tozier._ I spent a whole day terrified someone would read it, so I ripped the page out and burnt it on the stove when I got home. The whole kitchen stunk of smoke._”_

Richie laughs because it’s so stupid and lame and because he loves it anyway, loves Eddie for writing it.

“We were such _idiots_.” Richie says. “Why didn’t we say anything? We could have done this so long ago. You could have been my first kiss, instead of Lucy Powrie and the bits of food stuck in her braces.”

Eddie rubs a thumb over Richie’s cheekbone and smiles sadly.

“We weren’t idiots. We were just young. And scared.”

Richie thinks about the poor Adrian Mellon, drowning in front of his boyfriend and about how he had stopped going to the arcade all together after a while and thinks Eddie is right. He feels a weirdly overpowering rush of affection for his younger self, frightened and alone and desperately in love.

“I just wish sometimes…” He says, swallowing. “I wish we hadn’t lost all that time. It’s such a waste.”

Eddie reaches up and adjusts his glasses for him, brushing the hair out of his eyes.

“It’s not a waste. Not when it brought us here. I wouldn’t change anything, if it was all leading up to this.”

“Not even getting married to your mom? Death number one? Or two?” Richie says and then winces because _tragedy plus time equals comedy_ but he’s still not ready to joke about that. 

Eddie doesn’t seem offended though, for once in his life. He just rolls his eyes and leans up on his tiptoes to pull Richie down into a kiss.

“We have the rest of our lives to make up for it.” He says a moment later, into Richie neck and Richie tries to find it lame, but he can’t. Maybe this will be his life now; maybe he’s lost the ability to be cynical and sarcastic. He’ll have to retire from comedy; everyone knows the funniest stand ups are miserable drunks and for once in his life Richie doesn’t really fit into that category.

_Have you ever heard the one about happiness, ladies and gentlemen? Really, truly ,being happy? Turns out it actually exists outside of ads for Coca-Cola!_

“The rest of our lives huh?” Richie muses. “Well let’s get started then.”

“I’ll drive.” Eddie tells him and he’s still so bossy, even after twenty-seven years.

Richie tosses him the keys and walks away from the kissing bridge without looking back. It’ll still be here he knows, long after Derry has forgot them again.

“My own chauffeur? Nice.” Richie says, climbing into the passenger seat.

“If only. I’d have a partition if that was true. So, what do you think?” Eddie huffs as he adjusts the seat for his legs, making a lot of fussy tiny adjustments to the mirrors.

“I think warp factor five Mr Sulu, first star on the right and straight on till morning.”

Eddie gives him a long-suffering look. “I meant direction asshole. Where do want to go?”

“Anywhere you want Eds.” Richie says, looking at the road ahead of them. “Just as you’re taking me there. And as long as it’s not fucking _Derry_.”

Eddie grins like a wolf and starts the engine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, so it's finally finished. Feel weirdly empty now, after obsessively writing this every night for over a week. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along for the ride! I loved reading all your comments and you have all been so nice and made me feel so valued, thank you. xx
> 
> I also realized that I wrote this entire Explicit rated fic without including anything racier than some kissing (hopefully all the violence deserves the tag anyway) so I WILL be posting a porny follow up fic in this same-universe series. So keep staying tuned I guess! And thank you all again, I've been overwhelmed by the positive response to this. As ever, please tell me what you think because I love to hear it!

**Author's Note:**

> So I just came out of a three day fugue state after seeing IT Chapter 2 and apparently I wrote this. This is sort of a fix- it but more of a fix it and fuck it up at the same time. Which is to say, more twists to come so stay tuned! Also, I know I hijacked this shippy fic with kind of a rant about how great Mike is but he's my fave character and I'm so fascinated by his situation in Chapter 2 (why did he not get to leave!!) That thing about him being a vegetarian is a headcanon of mine not based on my own feelings about meat but on that one scene in the first film where Bowers holds him down over it. I figure anyone would go for vegetables after that. 
> 
> Also I tried to warn for all the homophobia, violence, etc but in case I missed anything I'm sorry, please tell me if you want anything labelled. I tried to keep it consistent as possible with the book and the movies but obviously a lot of fucked up stuff happens in those. Finally I'm Scottish so I probably dropped the ball on some of the Americanisms. :( If so, my bad and again, feel free to say!
> 
> Thank you for reading and if you liked it (or hated it) or just have anything to say about it please comment because I could talk about Derry all day.
> 
> Update: Please see this amazing fanart drawn by the very talented tuherrus on tumblr!!!! Mild spoilers for the first chapter I guess but not really. https://tuherrus.tumblr.com/post/188175291962/eddie-hes-says-softly-feeling-like-hes-going


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